


s*S1^ 













wm>^: 



x=i-^ 









Class JiiA 

Book._»£L^.__ 
Gop)!!^!!!^" 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSrr. 




LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU 



MtvvUVs Sngltalj Etxta 



SELECTED LETTERS 



BY STELLA STEWART CENTER, A.M., IN- 
STRUCTOR IN ENGLISit; JULIA RICHMAN 
HIGH SCHOOL. NEW YORK CITY : : : : 




CHARLES E. MERRILL COMPANY 
NEW YORK AND CHICAGO 



^?\ 






This series of books includes in complete editions those mas- 
terpieces of English Literature that are best adapted for the use 
of schools and colleges. The editors of the several volumes are 
chosen for their special qualifications in connection with the 
texts issued under their individual supervision, but famiHarity 
with the practical needs of the classroom, no less than sound 
scholarship, characterizes the editing of every book in the series. 

In connection with each text, the editor has provided a critical 
and historical introduction, including a sketch of the life of the 
author and his relation to the thought of his time, critical 
opinions of the work in question chosen from the great body of 
English criticism, and, where possible, a portrait of the author. 
Ample explanatory notes of such passages in the text as call for 
special attention are suppUed, but irrelevant annotation and 
explanations of the obvious are rigidly excluded. 

CHARLES E. MERRILL COMPANY 



Copyright, 1915, 

BY 

CHARLES E. MERRILL CO. 



APR I 1915 

ci.A;jy8i85 



PREFACE 

The study of the familiar social letter holds an important 
place in the English cm'ricula of secondary schools and colleges. 
It is a distinct literary type worthy of study for its form as well as 
its content; it is superior to other types in its power to enrich the 
student's literary associations; it has a liberahzing influence that 
pushes his horizon beyond provincial bounds; and finally, it often 
arouses in him the ambition to be a better literary craftsman 
himself. A student may be sceptical of the value of attempting 
to write fiction, or poetry, or drama, but he rarely questions the 
usefulness of the practice of letter- writing. It is hoped that this 
collection of letters may stimulate him to find a means of express- 
ing himself in a fresh, direct, sincere fashion, free from stereotyped 
phrases, especially when he sees in the great letters of Uterature 
that the obscurest details of one's life may be invested with 
literary charm and atmosphere. Letter-writing is not a decadent 
art, as many think, but in this day of the picture postcard, the 
telegram blank, and the telephone, young people need encourage- 
ment in the development of the art. 

A variety of principles has determined the choice of letters in 
this volume. Those have been selected that seem good examples 
of the familiar, personal type; those also are included that will 
make the student better acquainted with the authors whose 
works he will probably read in high school and college. Perhaps 
still other letters may lead him to an acquaintance with writers 
who will be pleasant and profitable companions in later years 
when the pressure of schoolroom regime has been removed. A 
wide reading in letters may accomplish much toward making the 
student at home in that magic world bounded by the covers of a 
book — the real purpose of a course in literature. 

For the use of copyrighted material, the author extends grate- 
ful acknowledgment to the following publishers: D. Appleton & 

3 



4 PREFACE 

Co. for the letters from Thomas Huxley and the letter from 
General Lee quoted from Jones's Personal Reminiscences, Anec- 
dotes, and Letters of General Robert E, Lee; Brentano's for the 
selections from Lafcadio Hearn's Letters from the Raven; the 
Century Co. for Scott's letter to Doctor and Mrs. Hughes, for 
Lincoln's letter to J. D. Johnston, and the letter quoted from 
Thackeray^ s Letters to an American Family; Doubleday, Page & 
Co. for letters from Recollections and Letters of General Lee by 
Captain Robert E. Lee; Harper & Brothers for selections from 
The Letters of James Russell Lowell; the John Lane Company for 
the letter from New Letters and Me7norials of Jane Welsh Carlyle; 
the Macmillan Company for the selections from Letters of Edward 
Fitzgerald and The Letters of Matthew Arnold, and G. P. Putnam's 
Sons for letters from the authorized editions of the works of 
Washington Irving and Horace Walpole. 



CONTENTS 

Introduction page 

The Letter in Literature . 9 

Suggestions for Study and Composition .... 16 
BibKography 21 

I. Madame de Sevign^ 

1. To M. de Coulanges 23 

2. To Madame de Grignan 25 

3. To M. de Coulanges 27 

11. Joseph Addison 

To Chamberlain Dashwood 30 

III. Richard Steele 

1. To Mary Scurlock 32 

2. To Mrs. Steele 33 

IV. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu 

1. To Miss Sarah Chiswell 34 

2. To the Countess of Mar 37 

V. The Earl of Chesterfield 

To his son, Philip Stanhope, Esq. ..... 45 

VI. Samuel Johnson 

To the Earl of Chesterfield 50 

VII. James Boswell 

To David Garrick 53 

VIII. Oliver Golds^hth 

1. To Robert Bryant on 56 

2. To the Reverend Thomas Contarine ... 61 

3. To Mr. Griffiths 65 

4. To Mrs. Bunbury ^ . . 67 

5 * 



G CONTENTS 

IX. Benjamin Franklin page 

1. To Mrs. Deborah Franklin 72 

2. To Miss Mary Stevenson 76 

3. To Mr. Strahan 83 

4. To Mrs. Sarah Bache 83 

X. Thomas Gray 

1. To Dr. Thomas Wharton 88 

2. To the Reverend James Brown 92 

XI. Horace Walpole 

1. To C. C 97 

2. To Sir Horace Mann 101 

3. To George Montagu 105 

XII. William Cowper 

1. To Lady Hesketh 108 

2. To Lady Hesketh 110 

3. To John Newton 113 

XIII. Walter Scott 

1. To Mrs. Walter Scott 116 

2. To Mrs. Thomas Hughes 123 

XIV. Sydney Smith 

To Miss 126 

XV. Charles Lamb 

1. To William Wordsworth 128 

2. To Thomas Manning 130 

3. To Thomas Manning 134 

4. To Miss Hutchinson 136 

5. To Bernard Barton 138 

6. To J. B. Dibdin 140 

XVL Washington Irving 

1. To Mademoiselle Bollviller 143 

2 To Mrs. Paris 148 

XVII. Benjamin Robert Haydon 

To Miss Mitford 153 



cox TEXTS 7 

XVin. George Peabodt page 

1 . Queen Victoria to George Peabody . . 157 

2. To Queen Victoria 158 

XIX. Lord Byrox 

1. To Thomas Moore 160 

2. To the Honorable Augusta Leigh . . . 161 

XX. Pebct Bysshe Shelley 

To Thon:-- L : ve Pe-cook 164 

XXL John Kzat^ 

1. To Benjamin Bailey 167 

2. To Fanny Keats 169 

XXIL Thomas Hood 

To May 175 

XXIII. J.^"E Welsh Caelyle 

1. To Ali- S-::::.rt 177 

2. To :vlis5 S-:;i::.rr 180 

3. To Mrs. WcL.h 183 

XXIV. Nath.\xtel Hawthorxe 

1. To George Stilhnan Hillard .... 185 

2. To George StiUman Hillard .... 188 

XXV. Robert E Lze 

1. To the T:-- - : ^^^^ :'-/:;:--^- ^- .liege . 190 

2. To Peabioy :..;-:. 192 

3. ToGener-lJ. B. G,.r.ion 193 

XXVI. Abraham Lixcolx 

To John D. Johnston 194 

XXVn. Edward Fitzgerald 

1. To Bernard Barton 197 

2. To Frederic Tenn3son 199 

XXVIII. WiLLL\M Makepeace Thackeray 

To Lucy D. Ba^xter 202 



8 CONTENTS 

XXIX. Charles Dickens page 

1. To Master Hastings Hughes .... 206 

2. To Henry Austin 208 

3. To Mrs. Dickens 211 

4. To Washington Irving 212 

5. To Douglas Jerrold 215 

6. To W. Wilkie CoUins 218 

7. To F. D. Finlay 219 

8. To Miss Dickens 219 

XXX. James Russell Lowell 

1. To Miss Norton 222 

2. To Miss Norton 225 

3. To Miss Norton 231 

4. To James T. Fields 232 

5. To Miss Norton 236 

6. To Thomas Bailey Aldrich .... 238 

7. To Mrs. Lowell 239 

XXXI. Charles Kingsley 

To Mr. Wood 242 

XXXII. Matthew Arnold 

1. To Miss Arnold 244 

2. To his younger daughter 246 

XXXIII. Thomas Henry Huxley 

1. To John Tyndall 250 

2. To his daughter 253 

3. To John Tyndall 255 

XXXIV. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) 

To Adelaide 256 

XXXV. Robert Louis Stevenson 

To Dr. Bakewell 258 

XXXVI. Lafcadio Hearn 

1. To Henry Watkin 260 

2. To Henry Watkin 263 

3. To Henry Watkin 265 

Notes 267 



IXTRODUCTIOX 



THE LETTER IX LITERATURE 

Description of Letters. The letter of the famihar, personal 
type defies definition but incites description. It resembles the 
kind of essay perfected by Lamb and Stevenson, being informal 
and, apparently, artless and unpremeditated. It belongs, like 
the hTic, to the literature of seK-revelation. Letters are the 
quintessence of a man's life, or, as LoweU phrased it, ''the real 
inside of him." The}' are the expression of a mood and succeed 
in so far as the writer is able to captiu-e a thing so fleeting, and 
put it on paper. Jane Carlyle's mood of impatience, Fitzgerald's 
serenity, Dickens's sportive gaiety, Johnson's outraged dignity, 
have been cr>'staUized into letters of interest and charm. A 
letter-writer abandons himself to the passing mood, and his letter 
usually keeps to the same '* tone '' from beginnmg to end. 

Intellectual originality and human s^TQpathy characterize 
really great letters which touch the heart as well as the head. 
Carlyle thanked Fitzgerald for his '^ friendly, human letter." 
The object of the letter is not to '"'enlarge the boimds of human 
thought. It is to amuse, to please, to excite s^Tnpathy and 
interest, to keep up friendship and annihilate distance." The 
first essential of the letter is style — that is, not what one writes 
about but the way in which one writes about it. A good letter 
has the keen edge of talk and, in addition, facility of stj'le. To 
quote from Dr. Johnson's Dictionary-: '"'The stile of letters ought 
to be free, easy^ and natm-al; as near approaching to famiHar 
conversation as possible: the two best quahties in conversation 
are, good humour and good breeding; those letters are therefore 
certainly the best that show the most of these two quahties." 
The second essential is the person to whom the letter is written — 

9 



10 INTRODUCTION 

a reader with imaginative sympathy. The recipient determines 
half the letter, and if the recipient has not this consciousness as 
he reads, the letter fails. The real message is between the lines 
and has appUcation to two people onl}-. In short, a letter is 
talking on paper to a friend, with no restraints except those 
imposed by one's native reserve and good taste. 

Comments on Letters. It is interesting to note the comments 
of the greatest letter- writers. Cowper, in \\Titing to Lady 
Hesketh, says: '^WTien I read 3'our letters, I hear you talk, and I 
love talking letters dearly." On one occasion when Carlyle had 
written from Germany too much about the scenery, and too 
little about his digestion, Jane Carl^de WTites: "Don't mind 
length, at least only wTite longly about yourself. The cocks that 
awake you; everything of that sort is ver\^ interesting. I hasten 
over the clever descriptions of extraneous people and things to 
find something 'all about yourself all to myself.'" She calls her 
own letters ''egotistical babblement," but critics rank her as one 
of the greatest letter- writers. She was once asked why women 
who did not \\Tite books always wrote so much "nicer letters than 
those who did." She replied that she supposed it was because 
"they did not ^Tite in the 'Valley of the Shadow' of their future 
biographer, but wrote what they had to say frankly and nat- 
urally." Wlio does not share her objection to that pernicious 
habit that makes letters common property? "There is a circula- 
tion of letters in famihes that frightens me from writing often; 
it is difficult to write a circular letter to one." A true letter shows 
for whom it was intended, even if the names of the recipient and 
the \NTiter are detached. Every one requires a letter all to him- 
seK, and responds indifferently to one held in common. 

Lowell, a versatile and gifted letter-writer, insisted that he did 
not like to vrrite letters. He asks, " How return a pressure of the 
hand by next day's post, when the other term of the equation has 
by this time got his fist in his pocket and is thinking of something 
else?" He thinks that "an author's works are his letters to his 
friends, and if they cannot feel in reading them that they are 
freshly remembered, then the works are not good for much." 



THE LETTER IN LITERATURE 11 

In a letter to Mrs. Francis G. Shaw, Lowell sums up his attitude 
toward letter- writing: 

** You know that I promised solemnly to write you a letter from 
Switzerland and therefore, of course, I didn't do it. These 
epistolary promises to pay always do (or at least always ought to) 
come back protested. A letter ought always to be the genuine 
and natural flower of one's disposition — proper both to the writer 
and the season — -and none of your turnip japonicas cut laboriously 
out of a cheap and flabby material. Then, when you have sealed 
it up, it comes out fresh and fragrant. I do not like shuttle-cock 
correspondence. What is the use of our loving people if they 
can't let us owe them a letter? They can't be sure we keep on 
loving them if we don't keep sending an acknowledgment under 
our hands and seals once a month? As if there were a statute of 
limitations for affection! " 

Again he writes characteristically: "At last, like a true lazarone 
as I am, I have been waiting for sunshine before I wrote — I mean 
for one of those moods that would make a letter worth sending; 
and such a mood is not dependent on mere cheerfulness, but 
almost altogether on having nothing to do, so that one can have 
time to hatch one's thoughts fau-ly out as one goes along." 

Edward Fitzgerald, an incomparable letter-writer, agrees with 
Lowell, that leisure is a requisite of letter- writing. He writes: 
''When I began this letter I thought I had something to say: but 
I believe the truth was I had nothing to do." 

It would be hard to find a better picture of comfortable ease 
and pleasurable anticipation at the prospect of talking to a 
friend than in another letter of his: '^l}/i P. M. — After a stroll in 
mine own Garden, under the moon — shoes kicked off — slippers 
and Dressing Gown on — -a Pinch of Snuff — and hey for a Letter — 
to my only London Correspondent!" 

Thomas Moore's comment on a certain letter has the true 
Irish flavor: ''And troth, it's a letter myself would like better, 
could I manage to lave the contints of it out." 

Characteristics of Letter-writers. Great men of letters are 
not necessarily great letter-writers. The characteristics of a 



12 INTRODUCTION 

good letter and of a literary masterpiece are not the same. The 
letter- writer has little regard for proportion; he mingles the 
significant and the insignificant; he is indifferent that ideas 
should follow each other in logical sequence; he gives a mood free 
play. That which is fatal to the formal masterpiece is essential 
to the hfe of the letter. Yet Lamb, Lowell, Fitzgerald, Gray, 
Cowper, Lanier, Matthew Arnold succeeded in investing the 
intimate letter with literary charm, and at the same time pro- 
duced some of the masterpieces of English hterature. 

A good letter-writer possesses the temperament that makes 
and holds friends. He is usually an impressionable, lively, sensi- 
tive individual with humane impulses and sympathetic thoughts. 
He is able to describe the commonplace details of the routine of 
life in such a way as to strike a responsive chord in the reader. 
Is he not like that rare individual who is more interesting after a 
two-mile jaunt than other people after a tour around the world? 
The best letter-writers make the reader feel an increasing tender- 
ness for them. 

Many great letter-writers give the impression of having ample 
leisure, ''a plentiful lack of business. '^ Fitzgerald, Lamb, Wal- 
pole, Madame de Sevign^, Lady Montagu, Cowper, Gray never 
seem hurried. Letter-writing was for them a diversion and rec- 
reation. They poured out their souls lavishly, and the world of 
letters is richer for then- prodigality. 

Contents of Letters. It is an interesting study to note the 
contents of letters. Jane Carlyle gives spirited accounts of the 
annual spring-cleaning, the sleep-disturbing chickens, and even 
the back-fence cat. Lafcadio Hearn writes vividly of New York 
with its ^' cubic miles of cut granite and iron fury." Brunswick 
(Georgia) with its marsh-grass and jessamine and magnolia, 
London with its street-cries and theaters, are to Lanier and 
Lamb material for delightful letters that have an enduring 
place in the authors^ works. Robert Burns WTote to one of his 
correspondents: "I insist that you shall write whatever comes 
first, what you see, what you read, what you hear, what you 
admire, what you dislike, trifles, bagatelles, nonsense; or to 



THE LETTER IN LITERATURE 13 

fill up a corner, e'en put down a laugh at full length." In brief, 
anything serves as material for a letter, from the grocer's bill to 
literary criticism. 

Writers Revealed in Letters. Great letter-writers reveal them- 
selves frankly in their letters and convince the reader that they 
are 

''not too bright or good 
For human nature's daily food." 

^Maen Swift writes London gossip to Steele, Goldsmith his 
apologetic request for money, Lamb a description of a cold in the 
head, they seem no longer remote literary figures, but familiar 
friends. John Henry Xewman T^Tote: '^It has ever been a hobby 
of mine, though perhaps it is a truism, not a hobby, that the 
true life of a man is in his letters." Generations ago Lord Bacon 
recorded the following: '^Letters, such as are written from wise 
men, are, of all the words of men, in my judgment, the best." 
Even with a casual perusal of their letters, one is impressed with 
Franklin's economy and prudence, Lee's devotion to duty. Lamb's 
affection for London, Stevenson s whimsical playfulness, Jane 
Carlyle's high-strung sensitiveness, Cowper's affectionate dis- 
position and rehgious melancholia, and Lanier's absorption in 
his art. 

The best letters are those which accurately mirror the character 
of the ^Titer and show him to be delightful and lovable; they 
make us acquainted with what is best in the writer. The letters 
that have the surest place in Hterature are those with a lucid, 
healthy, hearty tone — a quality that pervades the writings of 
Fitzgerald, Lowell, and xlrnold. 

Times and Places Revealed in Letters. The letter holds the 
mirror up to times and places. It reflects the social, pohtical, 
literary, and industrial condition of the contemporary age. 
Letter-\^Titers say what they mean and mean what they say, 
because, as a rule, they do not write for publication, and so give 
sincere utterance to their opinions and feelings. The letter is one 
of the best sources from which historians draw their material. 



14 INTRODUCTION 

Franklin's letters from Versailles, for example, give a lively pic- 
ture of court life in France as well as of our American Revolution. 
From Meredith's letters to his son Arthur, who was traveling in 
Germany during the Franco-Prussian War, one infers the anxiety 
and unrest that hovered over Europe, even among the non- 
combatants. Hearn's letters help us to reconstruct life in the 
French quarter of New Orleans and Memphis of a generation 
ago; from Japan he writes those letters that make us feel in- 
stinctively why ''East is East and West is West." Samoa is no 
longer an island in the South Pacific Seas, but the home of 
Stevenson, which one approaches by the Road of the Loving 

Heart. 

The Play-impulse in Letters. In no other form of literature, so 
much as in the letter, do writers manifest their tendency to play. 
It is as refreshing as it is unexpected to find the letter that Jane 
Carlyle's dog wrote to Carlyle for his mistress. When publishers 
were clamoring for manuscript, Stevenson took the time to write 
to Annie Ide and solemnly bequeath his birthday to her. Charles 
Dickens's letter in the form of statements full of technicahties, 
denying the current rumor of his ill-health, suggests Mark Twain's 
similar statement: ''Reports of my death greatly exaggerated." 
Goldsmith, oppressed with debt and iUness, wTote a letter in 
rhyme to Catherine Horneck Bunbury, explaining his failure to 
accept her invitation. It is hard to beUeve that the author of The 
Ordeal of Richard Feverel wrote the letter to his granddaughter 
about the swivel nose. The Minister to the Court of St. James 
signs himself, "Yours cordially, Llumbago Lowell." 

Literary Criticism in Letters. It is especially interesting to 
read letters for expressions of contemporary literary criticism. 
It is necessary for time to elapse before a true verdict can be 
reached, yet a fellow-craftsman's opinion is always worthy of 
consideration. How sincere and direct is the following from 
Walter Savage Landor: 

"I have been cushioning my old head in a pillow of novels. 
What a delightful book is Bulwer's Caxtons! Eamorui, too, is a 
novel that has surprised me. Never could I have believed that 



THE LETTER IN LITERATURE 15 

Thackeray, great as his abilities are, could have written so noble 
a story as Esmond. On your recommendation I have since been 
reading the whole of Humphrey Clinker. It seems to me that I 
have read a part of it before. Every letter ends with a rigmarole, 
then much in fashion, and thought to be very graceful. By 
rigmarole I mean such a termination as this: ^It had liked to have 
kindled the flames of discord in the family of yours always, etc' 
A tail always curls round the back of the letter-writer, and sticks 
to his sincerely, etc. How would Cicero and Pliny and Trajan 
have laught at this circumbendibus! I must now run to Dickens 
for refreshment. He is a never failing resource; and what an 
astonishing genius he is!'' 

Classification of Letters. Letters might be classified in various 
groups. There are the love letters of Steele, of Keats, of the 
Brownings, of Merimee, of Pope, and of Victor Hugo; the letters 
in praise of cities, such as Lamb's; the letters in condemnation of 
cities, such as Carlyle's of London, and Hearn's of New York, and 
Gibbons' s of Venice. Then there are the graceful letters from the 
recipients of gifts, as Lamb's expression of appreciation of brawn, 
Holmes's of a barometer, and Jane Carlyle's of an egg-cup. The 
illustrated letter is unique and suggests how effectively a sketch 
may supplement words. Thackeray in his letters to the Baxter 
family, Hearn in his letters from Memphis, New Orleans, and 
Grande Island, Eugene Field in his descriptions of one of his 
chief interests, baseball, all imparted interest and variety to their 
communications by means of the illustration. What delightTul 
reading are those letters written to children by their elders! 
Dickens, Sydney Smith, Stevenson, Lewis CarroU, PhiUips 
Brooks, Thackeray, and others understood children and have 
immortalized certain little people. 

Many of the finest letters have been written under pressure of 
grief. John Sterling faces certain death and tries to lessen the 
suffering that his friend, Carlyle, must undergo; the philosophy 
of Emerson revolves around a httle mound when he tries to write 
Carlyle of the death of his eldest child. He writes: "A few weeks 
ago I accounted myself a very rich man, and now the poorest of 



16 INTRODUCTION 

all. The eye of my home was plucked out when that little 
innocent boy departed in his beauty and perfection from my 
sight." Browning's very effort to maintain his self-control in 
WTiting of Mrs. Browning's death is an indication of the pro- 
found struggle beneath the surface. Cicero's letter to Atticus at 
the time of the death of his daughter Tullia reveals him as a man 
moved by a profound personal grief, in contrast with the orator 
convicting offenders of the law. 

The Effect of Reading Letters. The effect of wide reading in 
letters compensates one for the time and effort. The reader 
associates with men of letters on the most informal terms, when 
they express themselves frankly. Such association remedies 
crudeness and provinciality, and develops ease, grace, and dis- 
criminating taste. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY AND COMPOSITION 

Note. To the teacher: Writing, that is, expressing thoughts on 
paper, is a social activity. Particularly, should letter-writing be 
a response to a real demand in one's experience. Hence, the sug- 
gested exercises in composition work can be only hints, which the 
resourceful teacher will adapt to meet the needs of the individual 
class. The student should be encouraged to think of a real occa- 
sion in his Hfe when a certain type of letter is an essential part of 
his experience. It is still better to utihze some happening in the 
hfe of the school or the individual that demands a letter of a 
given type. The motive for wTiting then becomes social, and 
the need real, not artificial or manufactured. 

If a class or society or athletic team has recently accepted the 
hospitality of another school, or if certain students have recently 
returned from visits, such events are occasions for instruction in 
the theory and practice of letter-writing. The inventive teacher 
may effect a correspondence between students of different sec- 
tions of the country, and so supply a real motive for a letter de- 
scribing a place or the daily routine. Unless a letter grows out 
of the social experiences of the student, its style will be mechan- 



SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY AND COMPOSITION 17 

ical and lifeless and its contents dry as dust. The letters cited 
are in no sense to serve as models to be slavishly copied. They 
are merely instances of what others have written as occasion 
demanded. 

I. 1. What are the characteristics of Madame de Sevigne's 
letters? 

2. Do you agree with her that her letter regarding 

Picard is a *^ model of a pleasant narrative" 
(p. 29)? 

3. Has some event of great interest occurred recently 

in your community? If so, give an account of it 
in a letter. 
II. 4. Irving thought one should give ^^days and nights" to 
the study of Addison. Do you see any resemblance 
in the style of the two writers? 

5. Compare Addison's letter with others expressing 

appreciation of a gift. 

6. Write a letter of thanks for a gift. 

. III. 7. Do Lady Montagu's letters possess all the requisites 

of the familiar social letter, mentioned in *^The 

Letter in Literature" (p. 9)? How could her 

letters be made more interesting? 

IV. 8. Compare Lord Chesterfield's style and that of Lady 

Montagu. Is there any resemblance? 
V. 9. Read Irving's Life of Goldsmith for an account of 
''The Literary Club," of which Goldsmith, 
Johnson, Garrick, and Boswell were members. 

10. Characterize briefly the members of the Club. 

11. Compare Goldsmith's description of Holland with 

Byron's (p. 161). 

12. Write in rhyme an acceptance to an invitation. 
VI. 13. Compare Gray's account of the coronation of 

George III with Walpole's. (See Walpole's Letters 
to Horace Mann^ vol. 1, pp. 41-44, and Miscella^ 
neous Letters J vol. IV.) 



18 INTRODUCTION 

VII. 14. Walpole gives a vivid picture of his villa at Straw- 
berry Hill. Write a description of some well- 
known house that you have visited; for example, 
the Jumel Mansion in New York, Mount Vernon, 
Monticello, or the Hermitage. 
VIII. 15. What are the characteristics of Cowper's letters that 
make him rank as one of the greatest Enghsh 
letter-writers? 
16. What are the subjects of Cowper's letters? 
IX. 17. Sir Walter Scott's letter to his daughter shows his 
antiquarian interests. What use did he make of 
his antiquarian scholarship in his novels? 
X. 18. ''Lamb was fortunate in his friends." Expand this 
statement, and indicate what qualities of Lamb 
recommended him to his friends. 

19. Write a letter to a friend who is ill or convalescent, 

taking a hint from Lamb's letter to his friend, 
Dibdin. 

20. Write to a friend a description of a recent visit you 

have made. 
XI. 21. In connection with Irving's letters, read his descrip- 
tion of Enghsh country life in The Sketch-Book^ and 
selections from Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey. 
His letter from Spain suggests an interesting 
group of his writings. The Alhambra, Moorish 
Chronicles, and The Conquest of Granada. Read in 
The Alhambra an account of his residence in the 
Moorish palace. 
XII. 22. In connection with Byron's letters, read Shelley's 
for a description of Byron's hfe and habits. 
23. What English men of letters hved in Italy in the 
first quarter of the nineteenth century? 

XIII. 24. Write a description of a journey, making the petty 
details of travel as vivid and interesting as Keats 
did. 

XIV. 25. Note the letters in this volume addressed to children; 



SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY AND COMPOSITION 19 

for example, those from Hood, Dickens, Lewis 
Carroll, and Thackeray. What is the attitude of 
the writer? 
26. Write a letter to a child with whom you are on 
intimate terms. 
XV. 27. Why is Jane Carlyle ranked as one of the greatest of 
English letter-writers? What is the material of her 
letters? 
28. Write a letter to a friend describing your experience 
in housekeeping or house-repairing, or your diffi- 
culties in making some article. 
XVI. 29. Compare Hawthorne, Scott, Lee, Goldsmith, and 
Johnson in their attitude toward financial affairs. 
Do you recall any others, especially men . of 
letters, who stood the test of financial troubles? 
XVII. 30. Read a biography of Fitzgerald and show that his 
letters reveal 'Hhe true inside of him.'^ 
XVIII. 31. Compare Dickens^ s and Arnold's impressions of the 
United States as recorded in their letters. 

32. Note the unusual form of some of Dickens^s letters. 

Compare them with Stevenson's letter to Annie 
Ide in the form of a will, and Holmes's letter to 
James T. Fields thanking him for a barometer. 
Can you recall any other unusual forms? 

33. Write a letter, in prose or verse, using some unusual 

form. 
XIX. 34. Compare Lowell's letters with what he says about 
letter-writing. See '^The Letter in Literature" 
(p. 10). 

35. Compare Lowell's experiences as a lecturer with 

those of Dickens and Arnold. 

36. Make the experiment of writing a sonnet, taking a 

hint from Lowell's to Miss Norton and to James 
T. Fields. 
XX. 37. Note that in the letter of Charles Kingsley's one 
idea and mood is dominant throughout the whole 



20 INTRODUCTION 

letter. Is this true of any other letters in this 
book? Is this an essential of a good letter? 

XXI. 38. What connection do you find between Lewis Car- 

roll's letters and his stories? In what other letters 
do you find the whimsical tone dominant? 

XXII. 39. Lafcadio Hearn, Thackeray, and Eugene Field 

illustrated the text of their letters with pen-and- 
ink sketches; Edward Fitzgerald used water- 
colors. Are there any letters in this volume that 
lend themselves easily to illustrations? 

40. Write a letter and illustrate it with pen-and-ink 

sketches. 

41. Compare Hearn's descriptions of Memphis and New 

York with Lamb's of London. Describe the im- 
pression some city has made on you. 
XXIII. 42. What were the social conditions in England in the 
eighteenth century that led to the development of 
letter-writing? 

43. Trace the development of the modern novel to the 

eighteenth-century letter. (See Cross's Develop- 
ment of the Novel.) 

44. Define the memoir, the letter, the journal, and the 

diary. 

45. Make a study of the different methods of transporta- 

tion of mails, especially the mail-coach of the 
eighteenth century. Investigate the changes in 
the price of postage. Swift refers to the ^'frank- 
ing" privilege in his Journal to Stella. (See 
Lecky's History oj the Eighteenth Century.) 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The Gentlest Art. E. V. Lucas. 

The Second Post. E. V. Lucas. 

The Great English Letter-writers. Coningsby W. Dawson. 

Children's Letters. Elizabeth Colson and Anna Gansevoort Chit- 
tenden. 

Women as Letter-writers. Ada M. Ingpen. 

Letters that Live. Laura E. Lockwood and Amy R. Kelly. 

The Friendly Craft. Elizabeth Deering Hanscom. 

Half Hours with the Best Letter-writers. Charles Knight. 

Four Centuries of English Letters. W. Baptiste Scoones. 

Letters and Letter-writing. Charity Dye. 

Familiar Letters of Henry David Thoreau. F. B. Sanborn. 

Familiar Letters of James Howell. Joseph Jacobs. 

The Paston Letters. James Gairdner. 

Journal of Stella. Jonathan Swift. 

Vailima Letters. Robert Louis Stevenson. 

Letters of Stevenson. Sidney Colvin. 

Some Letters of William Vaughan Moody. Daniel Gregory Mason. 

Letters of Charles Lamb. AKred Ainger. 

Letters of George Meredith. W. M. Meredith. 

Letters of Horace Walpole to Sir Horace Mann. Lord Dover. 

Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll. Stuart Dodgson Collingwood. 

Thackeray's Letters to an American Family. Lucy D. Baxter. 

Life and Letters of Cowper. Thomas S. Grimshawe. 

Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn. Elizabeth Bisland. 

Letters from the Raven: the correspondence of Lafcadio Heam with 
Henry Watkin. Milton Bronner. 

Letters of Charles Dickens. Mamie Dickens and Georgina Ho- 
garth. 

Letters and Memorials of Jane Carlyle. James A. Froude. 

21 



22 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

New Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle. Alexander 
Carlyle. 

Letters of Sidney Lanier. 

Letters of Edward Fitzgerald. William Aldis Wright. 

Letters of Matthew Arnold. George W. E. Russell. 

Letters of James Russell Lowell. Charles Eliot Norton. 

Development of the English Novel. Wilbur Lucius Cross. 

Some Writers of Good Letters. Royal Cortissoz. Century Maga- 
zine^ vol. 31, New Series, 1897. 

When Pens were Eloquent. Agnes Repplier. Harper's Magazine, 
vol. 115, 1907. 

Men and Letters. Herbert Paul. 

Queen of Letter-writers. Janet Aldis. 

The Dial, vol. 35, p. 407, 1903. 

The Nation, vol. 70, p. 5, 1900. 

The Century Magazine, vol. 59, p. 802, 1903. 



SELECTED LETTERS 



Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, Marquise de Sevigne (1626- 
1696), holds a distinguished place in French Hterature by her 
letters alone. In them she discussed matters of pubhc as well as 
private interest, anticipating, to some extent, modern newspapers. 
Many of her best letters are addressed to her cousin, Phillippe- 
Emanuel, Marquis de Coulanges (1631-1716). Those written 
to her daughter, Madame de Grignan, are sufficient in number 
and interest to give Madame de Sevigne an assured place among 
letter-writers. She bestowed on her daughter a wealth of affec- 
tion that has few parallels in literary history. 

One of her best known letters describes the famous suicide of 
the great cook, Vatel, when Louis XIV was the guest of Conde 
at Chantilly in 1671. Another has for its subject the marriage 
of Lauzun and Mademoiselle de Montpensier, a romantic princess 
who sacrificed her throne and high position for a selfish schemer. 
The refusal of one of Madame de Sevigne's footmen to turn 
hay-maker affords her material for another delightful letter. 
Madame de Sevigne's hveliness of expression, powers of keen 
observation, her relish for all sorts of amusements and diversions, 
her warm sympathy, her interest in people, all combined to make 
her *' queen of letter- writers." 

1. Madame de Sevigne to M. de Coulanges 

Paris, December 15, 1670 

I am going to tell you the most startling, surprising, 
wonderful, miraculous, fascinating, overwhelming, un- 

23 



24 SELECTED LETTERS 

heard of, unique, extraordinary, incredible and unex- 
pected piece of news; it is of the greatest importance 
and at the same time of the least; it is the most unusual 
and also the commonest; it is the most striking and 
until to-day the most secret thing, as well as the most 
brilliant and enviable; now if we cannot beheve this 
thing, how can it gain credence in Lyons? It is a 
thing which makes everybody exclaim with wonder, — 
in short, a thing which is to take place Sunday, when 
those who see it will think they have lost their senses; 
a thing which, although it will take place Sunday, 
perhaps will not be finished on Monday! I cannot 
make up my mind to tell you; you must guess what it 
is and I give you three trials. You give it up? 

Well, then I must tell you. Monsieur de Lauzim is 
to marry next Sunday at the Louvre,^ guess whom? I 
give you four, ten, a hundred trials. Madame de 
Coulanges says: '^It is really very hard to guess; per- 
haps it is Madame de la Valliere. '^ Indeed, Madame, 
it is not. ^^It is Mademoiselle de Retz, then/' No, 
nor she neither; you are extremely provincial. '^Ah,'' 
you say, '^we are certainly stupid. It is Mademoiselle 
de Colbert instead.'' Wide the mark! '^Surely then, 
it is Mademoiselle de Crequy." You are not there yet. 
I shall have to tell you after all. He is to marry, 
Sunday, at the Louvre, with the King's^ permission. 

Mademoiselle, Mademoiselle de , Mademoiselle 

guess her name. He is to marry Mademoiselle, 

the great Mademoiselle; Mademoiselle, daughter to 
the late Monsieur; Mademoiselle, granddaughter of 



MADAME DE SSVIGNS 25 

Henry IV; Mademoiselle d'Eu, Mademoiselle de 
Dombs, Mademoiselle de Montpensier, Mademoiselle 
d^Orleans, Mademoiselle, the King's first cousin, 
Mademoiselle, destined to the throne. Mademoiselle, 
the only match in France that was worthy of Monsieur. 
What a choice bit of gossip! If you cry out, if you are 
beside yourself, if you say that we have told you a lie, 
that the thing is false, that we are making sport of you, 
that it is a pretty jest without rhyme or reason; if, in 
short, you abuse us, we shall think you have the right, 
for we have done just the same things ourselves. Fare- 
well, the letters which you will receive by this post will 
inform you whether we are telling you the truth or not. 

2. Madame de Sevigne to Madame de Grignan 

Paris, Sunday, April 26, 1671 

This is not a letter, but an account which Moreuil 
has just given me of what happened at Chantilly con- 
cerning Vatel. I wrote to you on Friday that he had 
stabbed himself: this is the story in detail: — The king 
arrived on Thursday evening. The hunt, the lanterns, 
the moonlight, the promenading, the collation in a 
garden of jonquils — all was everything that could be 
desired. Supper came; the joint failed at one or two 
tables on account of some unexpected diners. This 
upset Vatel. He said several times, ^^My honour is 
lost; this is a disgrace that I cannot endure. '' He said 
to Gourville,^ ^^My head fails me; I have not slept for 
twelve nights. Help me to give my orders. '^ Gourville 



26 SELECTED LETTERS 

consoled him as best he could. The joint which had 
failed, not at the king^s table, but at the 25th table, 
haunted his mind. Gourville told Monsieur le Prince. 
Monsieur le Prince went up to him in his room and 
said, ^^Vatel, all is well; there never was anything so 
beautiful as the king's supper.^' He answered, ^'Mon- 
seigneur, your goodness overwhelms me. I know the 
joint failed at two tables.^' ^^ Nothing of the sort,'' 
said Monsieur le Prince; '^do not disturb yourself, — 
all is well.'' 

Midnight comes: the fireworks do not succeed; a 
cloud overspread them; they cost sixteen thousand 
francs. At four o'clock in the morning Vatel wanders 
about all over the place: everything is asleep. He 
meets a small purveyor with two loads of fish. He asks 
him, '^s this all?" ^^Yes, sir." The man did not 
know that Vatel had sent to all the seaport towns in 
France. They wait for some time; the other purveyors 
do not arrive. He grows excited; he thinks that no 
more fish will arrive. He finds Goiifville, and says to 
him, '^Sir, I shall not be able to survive this disgrace. 
My honour and reputation are at stake." Gourville 
only laughed at him. Then Vatel goes up to his own 
room, puts his sword against the door, and runs it 
through his heart — it was the third thrust, for he gave 
himself two wounds which were not mortal. He falls 
down quite dead. Meanwhile the fish is coming in from 
every side; people are seeking for Vatel to distribute it; 
they reach his room, they clamour, they burst open the 
door they find him lying bathed in his blood. Monsieur 



MADAME DE SJSVIGNS 27 

le Prince is hurriedly summoned; he is in utter despair. 
Monsieur le Due burst into tears; it was upon Vatel 
that his whole journey to Burgundy depended. Mon- 
sieur le Prince told the king, very sadly, ^^It was said 
to be the excess of his own code of honour.'' They 
praised him; they praised and they blamed his courage. 
The king said that for five years he had delayed his 
coming, because he knew the extreme trouble his visit 
would cause. 

But it was too late for poor Vatel. Gourville, how- 
ever, tried to repair the loss of Vatel, and the loss of 
Vatel was repaired. The dinner was excellent, so was 
the luncheon. They supped, they walked, there were 
games, there was hunting, the scent of jonquils was 
everywhere; it was an enchanted scene. 

3. Madame de Sevigne to M, de Coulanges 

Les Rochers, July 22, 1671 

This word is over and above my fortnightly letter, 
my dear Cousin, to inform you that you will soon have 
the honour of receiving Picard; and as he is the brother 
of Madame de Coulanges' valet, I am glad to let you 
know what my measures concerning him have been. 
You know that Madame de Chaulnes ^ is at Vitre : she 
is there awaiting her husband, the Duke, who arrives 
in ten or twelve days for the opening of the Brittany 
Chambers.^ You think that I am wandering: she is 
there awaiting her husband and all the Chambers, and, 
meanwhile, she is at Vitre all alone, dying of dulness. 



28 SELECTED LETTERS 

You cannot understand how this will ever lead to 
Picard. She is there dying of dulness. I am her only 
consolation. 

All this is very roundabout, but nevertheless we 
shall soon reach the point. As I am her only consola- 
tion, after having paid her a visit, she must come to me, 
and I want her to find my lawns neat and my alleys 
neat — those great alleys which you love. But still you 
don't understand where this is leading. Here is another 
little circumstance relating to it. You know this is 
haymaking time: I had no labourers, so I am obliged 
to send to that meadow which the poets have praised, 
to fetch all those working there to come and clean up 
here (you still see no point), and in their place I send 
all my people to faner. Do you know what to faner 
means? I must explain: to faner is the prettiest thing 
in the world. It is to turn hay over and over whilst 
gamboling in a meadow; if one can do this much, one 
can faner. 

All my people went off gaily: Picard alone came to 
tell me he wouldn't go, — that he hadn't entered my 
service for this, — that it was not his business, and that 
he preferred going back to Paris. Upon my word my 
wrath rose. I reflected that this was the hundredth 
time he had offended me, — that he had no heart, nor 
feeling; in a word, the measure was overflowing. I 
took him at his word, and in spite of all that was said 
for him, I remained as firm as a rock and he is gone. 
It is true justice to treat people according to their 
services, good or bad. If you see him again, don't 



MADAME DE SlSviGN^ 29 

receive him, don't protect him, don't blame me; and 
remember that he is the fellow in all the world who 
least likes haymaking, and is the most unworthy of 
being well treated. This is the story in a few words. 
For my part I like narratives in which one is told only 
what is necessary without any straying either to the 
right or the left, or going back to the beginning of 
things. In short, to speak without any vanity, I think 
you have here a model of a pleasant narrative. 

I am cross to-day, my child; I am as when you used 
to say, '^You are cross;'' I am sad, I have no news of 
you. A great friendship is never tranquil; it rains, we 
are alone; in a word, I wish you more joy than I have 
to-day. 



II 

In 1699 Joseph Addison (1672-1719) obtained a pension of 
£300 a year, to enable him ^'to travel and qualify himself to 
serve his Majesty/' He possessed many of the best character- 
istics of the eighteenth-century man of letters— grace, charm, 
ease, polish, and adequacy of expression. He was on confidential 
terms with diplomatists, and a member of the famous Kit-Cat 
Club. His Hterary fame, as well as that of Steele, rests on his 
contributions to The Taller and The Spectator. The foUowing 
letter is a good example of the graceful Enghsh of which Addison 
was master. 

Joseph Addison to Chamberlain Dashwood 

Geneva, July, 1702 

Dear Sir, — 

About three days ago Mr. Bocher put a very pretty 
snuffbox in my hand. I was not a little pleased to hear 
that it belonged to myself, and was much more so when 
I found it was a present from a gentleman that I have 
so great an honour for. You did not probably foresee 
that it would draw on you the trouble of a letter, but 
you must blame yourself for it. For my part I can no 
more accept of a snuffbox without returning my ac- 
knowledgments, than I can take snuff without sneez- 
ing after it. This last I must own to you is so great an 
absurdity that I should be ashamed to confess it, were 
not I in hopes of correcting it very speedily. I am 
observed to have my box oft'ner in my hand than those 

30 



JOSEPH ADDISON 31 

that have been used to one these twenty years, for I 
can't forbear taking it out of my pocket whenever I 
think of Mr. Dashwood. You know Mr. Bays recom- 
mends snuff as a great provocative to wit, but you may 
produce this letter as a standing evidence against him. 
I have since the beginning of it taken above a dozen 
pinches, and still find myself much more inclined to 
sneeze than to jest. From whence I conclude that wit 
and tobacco are not inseparable, or to make a pim of it, 
tho' a man may be master of a snuffbox, 

Non cuicunque datum est habere Nasam} 

I should be afraid of being thought a pedant for my 
quotation did I not know that the gentleman I am 
writing to always carries a Horace in his pocket. But 
whatever you may think me, pray, Sir, do me the jus- 
tice to esteem me 

Your most &c. 



Ill 

Richard Steele (1672-1729) was a warm-hearted, impulsive 
Irishman, who in his contributions to The Taller and to The 
Spectator Hied journahstic wTiting into the reahn of hterature. 
He was excellently adapted by nature and experience to be the 
complement of Addison. His second wife was Mrs. Mary Scur- 
lock, the ^'dear Prue'' of his letters. 

1. Richard Steele to Mary Scurlock 

September 1, 1707 
Madam, 

It is the hardest thing in the world to be in love, and 
yet attend to business. As for me, all who speak to 
me find me out, and I must lock myself up, or other 
people will do it for me. 

A gentleman asked me this morning, ''What news 
from Lisbon?'' and I answered, '^She is exquisitely 
handsome." Another desired to know when I had 
been last at Hampton Court. I rephed, ''I will be on 
Tuesday come se'ennight." Pr'ythe, allow me at least 
to kiss your hand before that day, that my mind may 
be in some composure. Oh love! 

A thousand torments dwell about thee, 
Yet who would live, to live without thee? 

Methinks I could write a volume to you; but all 
the language on earth would fail in saying how much, 
and with what disinterested passion, 

I am ever yours. 
Rich. Steele 
32 



RICHARD STEELE 33 

2. Richard Steele to Mrs, Steele 

De^il Taverx, Temple-Bar, 

Jan. 3, 1708 
Dear Prue, 

I have partly succeeded in my business to-day, and 
enclose two guineas as earnest of more. Dear Prue, I 
cannot come home to dinner. I languish for your wel- 
fare and mil never be a moment careless more. 

Your faithful husband. 

Rich. Steele 

Send me word you have received this. 



IV 

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762), known chiefly 
for her letters, wrote in a dignified fashion, devoid of the spon- 
taneity that usually characterizes a great letter-writer. Perhaps 
the fact that she anticipated that her letters would be published 
explains why they are more like essays than familiar letters. Her 
husband, Edward Wortley Montagu, was appointed ambassador 
at Constantinople in 1716, and Lady Mary accompanied him to 
Vienna, and thence to Adrianople and Constantinople. Her 
letters to Pope, and to the Countess of Mar, a favorite sister, 
and to Horace Walpole are full of graphic descriptions of eastern 
life. In Turkey, she became acquainted with the practice of 
inoculation for small-pox and had her own children inoculated. 

1. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu to Miss Sarah Chiswell 

Adrianople, April 1, 1717 

In my opinion, dear S., I ought rather to quarrel 
with you for not answering my Nimeguen ^ letter of 
August till December, than to excuse my not writing 
again till now. I am sure there is on my side a very 
good excuse for silence, having gone such tiresome 
land-journeys, though I don't find the conclusion of 
them so bad as you seem to imagine. I am very easy 
here, and not in the solitude you fancy me. The great 
quantity of Greek, French, English, and Italians, that 
are under our protection, make their court to me from 
morning till night; and, Fll assure you, are many of 
them very fine ladies; for there is no possibility for a 

34 



LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU 35 

Christian to live easily under this government but by 
the protection of an embassador — and the richer they 
are, the greater their danger. 

Those dreadful stories you have heard of the plague 
have very little foundation in truth. I own I have 
much ado to reconcile myself to the sound of a word 
which has always given me such terrible ideas, though 
I am convinced there is little more in it than a fever. 
As a proof of which, we passed through two or three 
towns most violently infected. In the very next house 
where we lay (in one of those places) two persons died 
of it. Luckily for me, I was so well deceived that I 
knew nothing of the matter; and I was made believe, 
that our second cook who fell ill here had only a great 
cold. However, we left our doctor to take care of him, 
and yesterday they both arrived here in good health; 
and I am now let into the secret that he has had the 
plague. There are many that escape it; neither is the 
air ever infected. I am persuaded it would be as easy 
to root it out here as out of Italy and France; but it 
does so little mischief, they are not very solicitous about 
it, and are content to suffer this distemper instead of our 
variety, which they are utterly unacquainted with. 

Apropos of distempers, I am going to tell you a 
thing that I am sure will make you wish yourself here. 
The small-pox, so fatal, and so general amongst us, is 
here entirely harmless by the invention of ingrafting, 
which is the term they give it. There is a set of old 
women who make it their business to perform the 
operation every autumn, in the month of September, 



36 SELECTED LETTERS 

when the great heat is abated. People send to one 
another to know if any of their family has a mind to 
have the small-pox: they make parties for this purpose, 
and when they are met (commonly fifteen or sixteen 
together), the old woman comes with a nut-shell full 
of the matter of the best sort of small-pox, and asks 
what veins you please to have opened. She immediately 
rips open that you offer to her with a large needle 
(which gives you no more pain than a common scratch), 
and puts into the vein as much venom as can lie upon 
the head of her needle, and after binds up the Uttle 
wound with a hollow bit of shell; and in this manner 
opens four or five veins. The Grecians have commonly 
the superstition of opening one in the middle of the 
forehead, in each arm, and on the breast, to mark the 
sign of the cross; but this has a very ill effect, all these 
wounds leaving little scars, and is not done by those 
that are not superstitious, who choose to have them in 
the legs, or that part of the arm that is concealed. 

The children or young patients play together all the 
rest of the day, and are in perfect health to the eighth. 
Then the fever begins to seize them, and they keep their 
beds two days, very seldom three. They have very 
rarely above twenty or thirty in their faces, which never 
mark; and in eight days^ time they are as well as before 
their illness. Where they are wounded, there remain 
running sores during the distemper, which I don^t 
doubt is a great relief to it. Every year thousands 
undergo this operation: and the French embassador 
says pleasantly, that they take the small-pox here by 



LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU 37 

way of diversion, as they take the waters in other 
countries. There is no example of any one that has 
died in it; and you may beUeve I am very well satisfied 
of the safety of the experiment, since I intend to try it 
on my dear little son. 

I am patriot enough to take pains to bring this use- 
ful invention into fashion in England; and I should not 
fail to write to some of our doctors very particularly 
about it, if I knew any one of them that I thought had 
virtue enough to destroy such a considerable branch 
of their revenue for the good of mankind. But that 
distemper is too beneficial to them not to expose to all 
their resentment the hardy wight that should undertake 
to put an end to it. Perhaps, if I live to return, I may, 
however, have courage to war with them. Upon this 
occasion admire the heroism in the heart of your 
friend, &c. 

2. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu to the Countess of Mar 

Adrianople, April 18, 1717 

I wrote to you, dear sister, and all my other English 
correspondents, by the last ship, and only Heaven can 
tell when I shall have another opportunity of sending 
to you; but I cannot forbear writing, though perhaps 
my letter may lie upon my hands this two months. To 
confess the truth, my head is so full of my entertain- 
ment yesterday, that 'tis absolutely necessary for my 
own repose to give it some vent. Without farther 
preface, I will then begin my story. 



38 SELECTED LETTERS 

I was invited to dine with the Grand Vizier's^ lady, 
and it was with a great deal of pleasure I prepared 
myself for an entertainment which was never given 
before to any Christian. I thought I should very little 
satisfy her curiosity (which I did not doubt was a con- 
siderable motive to the invitation) by going in a dress 
she was used to see, and therefore dressed myself in the 
court habit of Vienna, which is much more magnificent 
than ours. However, I chose to go incognita^ to avoid 
any disputes about ceremony, and went in a Turkish 
coach, only attended by my woman that held up my 
train, and the Greek lady who was my interpretress. 
I was met at the court door by her black eunuch, who 
helped me out of the coach with great respect, and con- 
ducted me through several rooms, where her she-slaves, 
finely dressed, were ranged on each side. 

In the innermost I found the lady sitting on her sofa, 
in a sable vest. She advanced to meet me, and pre- 
sented me half a dozen of her friends with great civility. 
She seemed a very good woman, near fifty years old. 
I was surprised to observe so little magnificence in her 
house, the furniture being all very moderate; and, ex- 
cept the habits and number of her slaves, nothing about 
her that appeared expensive. She guessed at my 
thoughts, and told me that she was no longer of an age 
to spend either her time or money in superfluities; that 
her whole expense was in charity, and her whole em- 
ployment praying to God. There was no affectation 
in this speech; both she and her husband are entirely 
given up to devotion. He never looks upon any other 



LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU 39 

woman; and, what is much more extraordinary, touches 
no bribes, notwithstanding the example of all his pred- 
ecessors. He is so scrupulous in this point, that he 

would not accept Mr. W 's present, till he had been 

assured over and over that it was a settled perquisite 
of his place at the entrance of every embassador. 

She entertained me with all kind of civility till dinner 
came in, which was served, one dish at a time, to a 
vast number, all finely dressed after their manner, 
which I do not think so bad as you have perhaps heard 
it represented. I am a very good judge of their eating, 
having lived three weeks in the house of an effendi ^ at 
Belgrade, who gave us very magnificent dinners, 
dressed by his own cooks, which the first week pleased 
me extremely; but I own I then began to grow weary 
of it, and desired our own cook might add a dish or two 
after our manner. But I attribute this to custom. I 
am very much inclined to believe an Indian, that had 
never tasted of either, would prefer their cookery to 
ours. Their sauces are very high, all the roast very 
much done. They use a great deal of rich spice. The 
soup is served for the last dish; and they have at least 
as great variety of ragouts as we have. I was very 
sorry I could not eat of as many as the good lady would 
have had me, who was very earnest in serving me of 
every thing. 

The treat concluded with coffee and perfumes, which 
is a high mark of respect; two slaves kneeling censed 
my hair, clothes, and handkerchief. After this cere- 
mony, she commanded her slaves to play and dance, 



40 SELECTED LETTERS 

which they did with their guitars in their hands; and 
she excused to me their want of skill, sajdng she took 
no care to accomplish them in that art. 

I returned her thanks, and soon after took my leave. 
I was conducted back in the same manner I entered; 
and would have gone straight to my own house; but 
the Greek lady Tvdth me earnestly solicited me to visit 
the kiydya^s ^ lady, saying, he was the second oflScer in 
the empire, and ought indeed to be looked upon as the 
first, the Grand Vizier having only the name, while he 
exercised the authority. I had found so little diversion 
in this harem, that I had no mind to go to another. 
But her importunity prevailed with me, and I am ex- 
tremely glad that I was so complaisant. 

All things here were with quite another air than at the 
Grand Vizier^s; and the very house confessed the differ- 
ence between an old devotee and a young beauty. It 
was nicel}" clean and magnificent. I was met at the 
door by two black eunuchs, who led me through a long 
gallery between two ranks of beautiful young girls, 
with their hair finely plaited, almost hanging to their 
feet, all dressed in fine light damasks, brocaded w4th 
silver. I was sorry that decency did not permit me to 
stop to consider them nearer. 

But that thought was lost upon my entrance into a 
large room, or rather pavilion, built round with gilded 
sashes, which were most of them thrown up, and the 
trees planted near them gave an agreeable shade, which 
hindered the sun from being troublesome. The jes- 
samines and honeysuckles that twisted round their 



LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU 41 

trunks, shedding a soft perfume, increased by a white 
marble fountain playing sweet water in the lower part 
of the room, which fell into three or four basins with a 
pleasing sound. The roof was painted with all sorts of 
flowers, falling out of gilded baskets, that seemed 
tumbling dovm. On a sofa, raised three steps, and 
covered with fine Persian carpets, sat the Mydya^s lady, 
leaning on cushions of white satin, embroidered; and 
at her feet sat two young girls, the eldest about twelve 
years old, lovely as angels, dressed perfectly rich, and 
almost covered with jewels. 

But they were hardly seen near the fair Fatima (for 
that is her name), so much her beauty effaced every 
thing. I have seen all that has been called lovely either 
in England or Germany, and must own that I never 
saw any thing so gloriously beautiful, nor can I recol- 
lect a face that would have been taken notice of near 
hers. She stood up to receive me, saluting me after 
their fashion, putting her hand upon her heart with a 
sweetness full of majesty, that no court breeding could 
ever give. She ordered cushions to be given to me, and 
took care to place me in the corner, which is the place 
of honour. I confess, though the Greek lady had before 
given me a great opinion of her beauty, I was so struck 
with admiration, that I could not for some time speak 
to her, being wholly taken up in gazing. That surpris- 
ing harmony of features, that charming result of the 
whole, that exact proportion of body, that lovely bloom 
of complexion unsullied by art, the unutterable en- 
chantment of her smile — But her eyes, — large and 



42 SELECTED LETTERS 

black, with all the soft languishment of the blue, every 
turn of her face discovering some new charm. 

After my first surprise was over, I endeavoured, by 
nicely examining her face, to find out some imperfec- 
tion, without any fruit of my search, but being clearly 
convinced of the error of that vulgar notion, that a 
face perfectly regular would not be agreeable; nature 
having done for her with more success, what Apelles ^ 
is said to have essayed, by a collection of the most ex- 
act features, to form a perfect face, and to that, a be- 
haviour, so full of grace and sweetness, such easy mo- 
tions, with an air so majestic, yet free from stiffness or 
affectation, that I am persuaded, could she be suddenly 
transported upon the most polite throne of Europe, 
nobody would think her other than bom and bred to be 
a queen, though educated in a country we call bar- 
barous. To say all in a word, our most celebrated Eng- 
lish beauties would vanish near her. 

She told me the two girls at her feet were her daugh- 
ters, though she appeared too young to be their mother. 
Her fair maids were ranged below the sofa, to the num- 
ber of twenty, and put me in mind of the pictures of the 
ancient nymphs. I did not think all nature could have 
furnished such a scene of beauty. She made them a 
sign to play and dance. Four of them immediately 
began to play some soft airs on instruments between a 
lute and a guitar, which they accompanied with their 
voices, while the others danced by turns. This dance 
was very different from what I had seen before. Noth- 
ing could be more artful, — the tunes so soft — the motion 



LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU 43 

SO languishing — accompanied with pauses and dying 
eyes, half-faUing back, and then recovering themselves 
in so artful a manner. 

I suppose you may have read that the Turks have 
no music but what is shocking to the ears; but this 
account is from those who never heard any but what 
is played in the streets. I can assure you that the 
music is extremely pathetic; ^tis true I am inclined to 
prefer the Italian, but perhaps I am' partial. I am ac- 
quainted with a Greek lady who sings better than 
Mrs. Robinson, and is very well skilled in both, who 
gives the preference to the Turkish. 'Tis certain they 
have very natural voices: these were very agreeable. 
When the dance was over, four fair slaves came into 
the room with silver censers in their hands, and per- 
fumed the air with amber, aloes-wood, and other rich 
scents. After this they served me coffee upon their 
knees in the finest Japan china, with soucoupes ^ of sil- 
ver, gilt. The lovely Fatima entertained me all this 
time in the most polite agreeable manner, calling me 
often Guzel sultanunij or the beautiful sultana, and de- 
siring my friendship with the best grace in the world, 
lamenting that she could not entertain me in my own 
language. 

When I took my leave, two maids brought in a fine 
silver basket of embroidered handkerchiefs; she begged 
I would wear the richest for her sake, and gave the 
others to my woman and interpretress. I retired 
through the same ceremonies as before, and could not 
help fancying I had been some time in Mahomet's 



44 SELECTED LETTERS 

paradise, so much I was charmed with what I had seen. 
I know not how the relation of it appears to you. I 
wish it may give you part of my pleasure; for I would 
have my dear sister share in all the diversion of 

Yours, &c. 



Philip Dormer Stanhope, fourth Earl of Chesterfield (1694- 
1773), was a politician, statesman, and essayist, but his Hterary 
fame rests chiefly on his Letters to his Son, written to Philip 
Stanhope. The letters are full of worldly wisdom, keen wit, 
advice, and instruction. In spite of the care bestowed on his 
education, the son did not fulfill his father's expectation. 
Chesterfield was selfish and calculating. He wanted to be 
known as a patron of letters, yet he so offended Samuel 
Johnson as to provoke from the doctor the famous letter in de- 
fense of men of letters. In 1747 Johnson had sent Chesterfield, 
who was then Secretary of State, a prospectus of his Dictionary, 
which was acknowledged by a subscription of £10. Chester- 
field remained indifferent, until the book appeared, when he 
wrote his papers in the World in praise of it, whereupon Johnson 
replied with a letter, famous for its sturdiness, independence, and 
candor. 

The Earl of Chesterfield to his Sorij Philip Stanhope^ Esq. 

London: November 24, 1747 
Dear Boy, — 

As often as I write to you (and that you know is 
pretty often) so often I am in doubt whether it is to any 
purpose, and whether it is not labour and paper lost. 
This entirely depends upon the degree of reason and 
reflection which you are master of, or think proper to 
exert. If you give yourself time to think, and have 
sense enough to think right, two reflections must neces- 
sarily occur to you; the one is, that I have a great deal 

45 



46 SELECTED LETTERS 

of experience and that you have none; the other is, 
that I am the only man Hving who cannot have, directly 
or indirectly, any interest concerning you, but your 
own. From which two undeniable principles, the ob- 
vious and necessary conclusion is, that you ought, for 
your own sake, to attend to and follow my advice. 

If, by the application which I recommend to you, 
you acquire great knowledge, you alone are the gainer; 
I pay for it. If you should deserve either a good or a 
bad character, mine will be exactly what it is now, and 
will neither be the better in the first case, nor the worse 
in the latter. You alone will be the gainer or the loser. 

Whatever your pleasures may be, I neither can nor 
shall envy you them, as old people are sometimes sus- 
pected by young people to do; and I shall only lament, 
if they should prove such as are unbecoming a man of 
honour, or below a man of. sense; but you will be the 
real sufferer, if they are such. As therefore it is plain 
that I have no other motive than that of affection in 
whatever I say to you, you ought to look upon me as 
your best and, for some years to come, your only friend. 

True friendship requires certain proportions of age 
and manners, and can never subsist where they are 
extremely different, except in the relations of parent 
and child; where affection on one side, and regard on 
the other, make up the difference. The friendship which 
you may contract with people of your o^vn age, may be 
sincere, may be warm; but must be, for some time, 
reciprocally unprofitable, as there can be no experience 
on either side. 



THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD 47 

The young leading the young, is hke the blind lead- 
ing the blind : 'Hhey will both fall into the ditch/' The 
only sure guide is he who has often gone the road which 
you want to go. Let me be that guide, who have gone 
all roads, and who can consequently point out to you 
the best. If you ask me why I went any of the bad 
roads myself, I will answer you very truly, that it was 
for want of a good guide: ill-example invited me one 
way, and a good guide was wanting to show me a better. 
But if anybody, capable of advising me, had taken the 
same pains with me, which I have taken, and will con- 
tinue to take with you, I should have avoided many 
follies and inconveniences, which undirected youth ran 
me into. My father was neither desirous nor able to 
advise me, which is what, I hope, you cannot say of 
yours. You see that I make use only of the word advise; 
because I would much rather have the assent of your 
reason to my advice, than the submission of your will 
to my authority. This, I persuade myself, will happen, 
from that degree of sense which I think you have; and 
therefore I will go on advising, and with hopes of suc- 
cess. 

You are now settled for some time at Leipsic: the 
principal object of your stay there is the knowledge of 
books and sciences; which if you do not, by attention 
and application, make yourself master of while you are 
there, you will be ignorant of them all the rest of your 
life : and take my word for it, a life of ignorance is not 
only a very contemptible, but a very tiresome one. 
Redouble your attention then, to Mr. Harte, in your 



48 SELECTED LETTERS 

private studies of the Litem Humaniores,^ especially 
Greek. State your difficulties, whenever you have any; 
and do not suppress them, either from mistaken shame, 
lazy indifference, or in order to have done the sooner. 
When you are at lectures with Professor Mascow, or 
any other professor, let nothing pass till you are sure 
that you understand it thoroughly; and accustom your- 
self to write down the capital points of what you learn. 

When you have thus usefully employed your morn- 
ings, you may with a safe conscience divert yourself in 
the evenings, and make those evenings very useful too, 
by passing them in good company, and, by observation 
and attention, learning as much of the world as Leipsic 
can teach you. You will observe and imitate the man- 
ners of the people of the best fashion there; not that 
they are (it may be) the best manners in the world; but 
because they are the best manners of the place where 
you are, to which a man of sense always conforms. 
The nature of things, as I have often told you, is always 
and everywhere the same; but the modes of them vary, 
more or less, in every country; and an easy and genteel 
conformity to them, or rather the assuming of them at 
proper times and in proper places, is what particularly 
constitutes a man of the world, and a well-bred man. 

Here is advice enough, I think, and too much, it may 
be, you will think, for one letter; if you follow it, you 
will get knowledge, character, and pleasure by it; if you 
do not, I only lose overam et oleum,^ which, in all events, 
I do not grudge you. 

I send you, by a person who sets out this day for 



THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD 49 

Leipsic, a small packet from your mamma, containing 
some valuable things which you left behind. I have sent 
you the Greek roots, lately translated into English from 
the French of the Port Royal. ^ Inform yourself what 
the Port Royal is. To conclude with a quibble : I hope 
you will not only feed upon these Greek roots, but 
likewise digest them perfectly. Adieu! 



VI 

Samuel Johnson, (1709-1784), known as the great lexicog- 
rapher, struggled with poverty, hoping in vain for the patronage 
of Lord Chesterfield. For a quarter of a century he was the 
central figure in Enghsh Hterature; he found the best outlet for 
his thought in brilliant conversation. One of the brightest spots 
in his life was his intimacy with Dr. and Mrs. Thrale, who re- 
ceived him into their home in Southwark and ministered to his 
comfort for sixteen years. Many interesting letters to Mrs. 
Thrale testify to this friendship. 

Dr. Samuel Johnson to the Earl of Chesterfield 

February 7, 1755 

My Lord, 

I have been lately informed, by the proprietor of the 
World, that two papers, in which my Dictionary is 
recommended to the publick, were written by your 
Lordship. To be so distinguished is an honour, which, 
being very little accustomed to favours from the great, 
I know not well how to receive, or in what terms to 
acknowledge. 

When, upon some slight encouragement, I first 
visited your Lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest 
of mankind, by the enchantment of your address; and 
could not forbear to wish that I might boast myself 
Le vainqueur du vainqueur de la terre,^ that I might ob- 
tain that regard for which I saw the world contending; 
but I found my attendance so httle encouraged that 

50 



SAMUEL JOHNSON 51 

neither pride nor modesty would suffer me to continue 
it. When I had once addressed your Lordship in pub- 
Hck, I had exhausted all the art of pleasing which a re- 
tired and uncourtly scholar can possess. I had done all 
that I could; and no man is well pleased to have his all 
neglected, be it ever so little. 

Seven 3'ears, my Lord, have now past, since I waited 
in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; 
during which time I have been pushing on my work 
through difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, 
and have brought it, at last, to the verge of pubhcation, 
-without one act of assistance, one word of encourage- 
ment, or one smile of favour. Such treatment I did 
not expect, for I never had a Patron before. 

The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with 
Love, and found him a native of the rocks. 

Is not a Patron, my Lord, one who looks with un- 
concern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, 
when he has reached ground, encimibers him with help? 
The notice which you have been pleased to take of my 
labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been 
delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I 
am solitar}^, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and 
do not want it. I hope it is no very cjmical asperity 
not to confess obligations where no benefit has been 
received, or to be unwilling that the pubHck should 
consider me as owing that to a Patron which Providence 
has enabled me to do for myself. 

Ha\'ing carried on my work thus far with so little 
obligation to any favourer of learning, I shall not be dis- 



52 SELECTED LETTERS 

appointed though I should conclude it, if less be possi- 
ble, with less; for I have been long wakened from that 
dream of hope, in which I once boasted myself with so 

much exultation, 

My Lord, 
Your Lordship's most humble. 

Most obedient servant, 

Sam. Johnson 



VII 

James Boswell (1740-1795) was the biographer of Samuel 
Johnson. Some one asked, ^'Who is this Scotch cur at Johnson^s 
heels?" ^'He is not a cur," repUed Goldsmith, ^'he is only a burr. 
Tom Davies^ flung him at Johnson in sport and he has the faculty 
of sticking." When Boswell began to ^'Boswellize," he was 
twenty-three and Johnson was fifty-four. Johnson hked to talk 
and Boswell delighted in eliciting and recording conversation. 
So the two were not ill-assorted. Boswell was admitted to the 
famous Literary Club, which numbered among its members 
Johnson, Burke, Garrick, Reynolds, and Goldsmith. The fol- 
lowing letter describes Johnson's visit to the Boswells in Ayrshire 
in 1773. 

James Boswell to David Garrick 

Inverness: August 29, 1773 
My Dear Sir, — 

Here I am, and Mr. Samuel Johnson actually with 
me. We were a night at Fores, in coming to which, in 
the dusk of the evening, we passed over the black and 
blasted heath where Macbeth met the witches. Your 
old preceptor repeated, with much solemnity, the 
speech, ^'How far is't called to Fores? ^ What are 
these, so withered and so wild in their attire.'' 

This day we visited the ruins of Macbeth's castle at 
Inverness. I have had great romantic satisfaction in 
seeing Johnson upon the classical scenes of Shakespeare 
in Scotland; which I really looked upon as almost as 
improbable as that ''Birnam Wood should come to 

53 



54 SELECTED LETTERS 

Dunsinane/' Indeed, as I have alwa^^s been accus- 
tomed to view him as a permanent London object, it 
would not be much more wonderful to me to see St. 
Paul's church moving along where we now are. As 
yet we have travelled in post-chaises; but to-morrow 
we are to mount on horseback, and ascend into the 
mountains by Fort Augustus, and so on to the ferry, 
where we are to cross to Skye. We shall see that island 
fully, and then visit some more of the Hebrides; after 
which we are to land in Argyleshire, proceed by Glasgow 
to Auchinleck, repose there a competent time, and then 
return to Edinburgh, from whence the Rambler ^ will 
depart for old England again, as soon as he finds it coji- 
venient. 

Hitherto we have had a very prosperous expedition. 
He is in excellent spirits, and I have a rich journal of his 
conversation. Look back, Davy, to Lichfield; run up 
through the time which has elapsed since you first knew 
Mr. Johnson, and enjoy with me his present extraor- 
dinary tour. I could not resist the impulse of writing to 
you from this place. The situation of the old castle 
corresponds exactly to Shakespeare's description. 
While we were there to-day, it happened oddly that a 
raven perched upon one of the chimney-tops, and 
croaked. Then I in my turn repeated — 

The raven himself is hoarse, 

That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan 

Under my battlements.^ 

I wish you had been with us. Think what an enthusias- 
tic happiness I shall have to see Mr. Samuel Johnson 



JAMES BOSWELL 55 

walking among the romantic rocks and woods of my 
ancestors at Auchinleck. Write to me at Edinburgh. 
I offer my very best compliments to Mrs. Garrick, and 
ever am your warm admirer and friend, 

James Boswell 



VIII 

The following letters reveal many characteristics of Oliver 
Goldsmith (1728-1774). He was generous, sympathetic, vain 
of his personal appearance, and wholly unable to adjust his in- 
come to his expenses. His uncle, Thomas Contarine, was a 
loyal friend and supplied the necessary funds for the trip to 
Leyden and Paris in 1753, where Goldsmith studied medicine, 
according to his own accounts. In December, 1758, Goldsmith 
was examined at Surgeon's Hall for a certificate as hospital 
mate. In order to make a decent appearance before his ex- 
aminers, he had borrowed a suit of clothes from Griffiths, the 
bookseller, but was driven to pawn the clothes and was suspected 
by Griffiths of pawning some books, also. Griffiths' letter pro- 
voked a characteristic outburst. One of the brightest spots in 
Goldsmith's checkered life was his association with Miss Mary 
Horneck, the '' Jessamy Bride," for whom, no doubt, he cherished 
a warm regard. One of the following letters was written to her 
sister, Mrs. Bunbury, who was Miss Catherine Horneck. 

1. Oliver Goldsmith to Robert Bryanton, at Ballymahon, 

Ireland 

Edinburgh, September 26th, 1753 
My Dear Bob, 

How many good excuses (and you know I was ever 
good at an excuse) might I call up to vindicate my 
past shameful silence. I might tell how I wrote a long 
letter on my first coming hither, and seem vastly angry 
at my not receiving an answer; I might allege that 
business (with business you know I was always pes- 
tered) had never given me time to finger a pen. But 

56 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 57 

I suppress those and twenty more as plausible, and as 
easily invented, since they might be attended with a 
slight inconvenience of being known to be lies. Let me 
then speak truth. An hereditary indolence (I have it 
from the mother^s side) has hitherto prevented my 
writing to you, and still prevents my writing at least 
twenty-five letters more, due to my friends in Ireland. 
No turn-spit-dog gets up into his wheel with more reluc- 
tance than I sit down to write; yet no dog ever loved the 
roast meat he turns better than I do him I now address. 

Yet what shall I say now I am entered? Shall I tire 
you with a description of this unfruitful country; where 
I must lead you over their hills all brown with heath, 
or their valleys scarcely able to feed a rabbit? Man 
alone seems to be the only creature who has arrived to 
the natural size in this poor soil. Every part of the 
country presents the same dismal landscape. No 
grove, nor brook, lend their music to cheer the stranger, 
or make the inhabitants forget their poverty. Yet 
with all these disadvantages to call him down to humil- 
ity, a Scotchman is one of the proudest things alive. 
The poor have pride ever ready to reheve them. If 
mankind should happen to despise them, they are 
masters of their OTsni admiration; and that they can 
plentifully bestow upon themselves. 

From their pride and poverty, as I take it, results one 
advantage this country enjoj^s; namely, the gentlemen 
here are much better bred than among us. No such 
character here as our fox-hunters; and they have ex- 
pressed great surprise when I informed them, that some 



58 SELECTED LETTERS 

men in Ireland of one thousand pounds a year, spend 
their whole lives in running after a hare, and drinking 
to be drunk. Truly if such a being, equipped in his 
hunting dress, came among a circle of Scotch gentry, 
they would behold him with the same astonishment 
that a countrjonan does King George on horseback. 

The men here have generally high cheek bones, and 
are lean and swarthy, fond of action, dancing in par- 
ticular. Now that I have mentioned dancing, let me 
say somethmg of their balls, which are very frequent 
here. When a stranger enters the dancing-halls, he sees 
one end of the room taken up by the ladies, who sit 
dismally in a group by themselves; — in the other end 
stand their pensive partners that are to be; — but no 
more intercourse between the sexes than there is be- 
tween two countries at war. The ladies indeed may 
ogle, and the gentlemen sigh; but an embargo is laid 
on any closer commerce. At length, to interrupt hos- 
tilities, the lady directress pitches upon a lady and 
gentleman to walk a minuet; which they perform w4th 
a formahty that approaches to despondence. After 
five or six couples have thus walked the gauntlet, all 
stand up to country dances; each gentleman furnished 
with a partner from the aforesaid lady directress; so 
they dance much, say nothing, and thus concludes our 
assembly. I told a Scotch gentleman that such pro- 
found silence resembled the ancient procession of the 
Roman matrons in honor of Ceres; ^ and the Scotch 
gentleman told me, (and, faith I believe he was right,) 
that I was a very great pedant for my pains. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 59 

Now I am come to the ladies; and to show that I love 
Scotland, and everything that belongs to so charming 
a country, I insist on it, and will give him leave to 
break my head that denies it — that the Scotch ladies 
are ten thousand times finer and handsomer than the 
Irish. To be sure, now, I see your sisters Patty and 
Peggy vastly surprised at my partiality, — but tell them 
flatly, I don't value them — or their fine skins, or eyes, 
or good sense, a potato; for I say, and will maintain it; 
and as a convincing proof (I am in a great passion) of 
what I assert, the Scotch ladies say it themselves. But to 
be less serious; w^here w^ill you find a language so prettily 
become a pretty mouth as the broad Scotch? And the 
women here speak it in its highest purity; for instance, 
teach one of your young ladies at home to pronounce 
the '' Whoar wull I gong? '^ with a becoming widening 
of mouth, and I'll lay my life they'll wound every hearer. 

We have no such character here as a coquet, but 
alas! how many envious prudes! Some days ago I 
walked into my Lord Kilcoubry's (don't be surprised, 
my lord is but a glover), when the Duchess of Hamilton 
(that fair who sacrificed her beauty to her ambition, 
and her inward peace to a title and gilt equipage) passed 
by in her chariot; her battered husband, or more prop- 
erly the guardian of her charms, sat by her side. 
Straight envy began, in the shape of no less than three 
ladies who sat with me, to find faults in her faultless 
form. '^For my part," says the first, ^^I think what I 
always thought, that the Duchess has too much of the 
red in her complexion." ^^ Madam, I am of your opin- 



60 SELECTED LETTERS 

ion/' says the second; ^'I think her face has a palish 
cast too much on the dehcate order.'' ^^ And, let me tell 
you," added the third lady, whose mouth was puckered 
up to the size of an issue, ^^that the Duchess has fine 
lips, but she wants a mouth." At this every lady drew 
up her mouth as if going to pronounce the letter P. 

But how ill, my Bob, does it become me to ridicule 
women with whom I have scarcely any correspondence! 
There are, 'tis certain, handsome women here; and 'tis 
certain they have handsome men to keep them com- 
pany. An ugly and poor man is society only for him- 
self; and such society the world lets me enjoy in great 
abundance. Fortune has given you circumstances, 
and nature a person to look charming in the eyes of the 
fair. Nor do I envy my dear Bob such blessings, while 
I may sit down and laugh at the world and at myself, 
the most ridiculous object in it. But you see I am 
grown downright splenetic, and perhaps the fit may 
continue till I receive an answer to this. I know you 
cannot send me much news from Ballymahon, but such 
as it is, send it all; every thing you send will be agree- 
able to me. 

Has George Conway put up a sign yet; or John Fin- 

ecly left off drinking drams; or Tom Allen got a new 

wig? But I leave you to your own choice what to 

write. While I live, know you have a true friend in 

yours, &c. &c. &c. ^ ^ 

•^ ' Oliver Goldsmith 

P. S. Give my sincere respects (not compliments, 
do you mind) to your agreeable family, and give my 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 61 

service to my mother, if you see her; for, as you express 
it in Ireland, I have a sneaking kindness for her still. 
Direct to me,— — , Student in Physic, in Edinburgh. 

2. Oliver Goldsmith to the Rev. Thomas Contarine 

Leyden, April [or May], 1754 
Dear Sir, — 

I suppose by this time I am accused of either neglect 
or ingratitude, and my silence imputed to my usual 
slowness of writing. But believe me, sir, when I say 
that till now I had not an opportunity of sitting down 
with that ease of mind which writing required. You 
may see by the top of the letter that I am at Leyden; 
but of my journey hither you must be informed. 

Some time after the receipt of your last I embarked 
for Bordeaux on board a Scotch ship called the St. 
Andrew^s, Capt. John Wall, master. The ship made a 
tolerable appearance, and, as another inducement, 
I was let to know that six agreeable passengers were to 
be my company. Well, we were but two days at sea 
when a storm drove us into a city of England called 
Newcastle-upon-Tyne. We all went ashore to refresh 
us after the fatigue of our voyage. Seven men and I 
were one day on shore, and on the following evening, 
as we were all merry, the room door bursts open, 
enters a sergeant and twelve grenadiers, with their 
bayonets screwed, and puts us all under the King's 
arrest. It seems my company were Scotchmen in the 
French service, and had been in Scotland to enhst 



62 SELECTED LETTERS 

soldiers for the French army. I endeavoured all I 
could to prove my innocence; however, I remained in 
prison with the rest a fortnight, and with difficulty 
got off even then. Dear sir, keep this all a secret, or 
at least say it was for debt; for if it were once known 
at the university I should hardly get a degree. 

But hear how Providence interposed in my favour: 
the ship was gone on to Bordeaux before I got from 
prison, and was wrecked at the mouth of the Garonne, 
and every one of the crew were drowned. It happened 
the last great storm. There was a ship at that time 
ready for Holland: I embarked, and in nine days, thank 
my God, I arrived safe at Rotterdam ; whence I travelled 
by land to Leyden; and whence I now write. 

You may expect some account of this country, and 
though I am not well qualified for such an undertaking, 
yet shall I endeavour to satisfy some part of your ex- 
pectations. Nothing surprised me more than the books 
every day published, descriptive of the manners of this 
country. Any young man who takes it into his head 
to publish his travels visits the countries he intends to 
describe; passes through them with as much inatten- 
tion as his valet de chambre; and consequently, not 
having a fund himself to fill a volume, he applies to 
those who wrote before him, and gives us the manners 
of a country, not as he must have seen them, but such 
as they might have been fifty years before. 

The modern Dutchman is quite a different creature 
from him of former times: he in everything imitates 
a Frenchman, but in his easy, disengaged air, which is 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 63 

the result of keeping polite company. The Dutchman 
is vastly ceremonious, and is perhaps exactly what a 
Frenchman might have been in the reign of Louis XIV. 
Such are the better bred. But the do\Miright Hollander 
is one of the oddest figures in nature: upon a head of 
lank hair he wears a half-cocked, narrow hat laced with 
black ribbon; no coat, but seven waist-coats, and nine 
pairs of breeches; so that his hips reach almost up to his 
armpits. This well clothed vegetable is now fit to see 
company or make love. But what a pleasing creature 
is the object of his appetite? Why, she wears a large 
fur cap, with a deal of Flanders lace: and for every pair 
of breeches he carries, she puts on two petticoats. 

A Dutch lady burns nothing about her phlegmatic 
admirer but his tobacco. You must know, sir, every 
woman carries in her hand a stove with coals in it, 
which, when she sits, she snugs under her petticoats; 
and at this chimney dozing Strephon ^ lights his pipe. 
A Dutch woman and Scotch will well bear an opposi- 
tion. The one is pale and fat, the other lean and rudd}^; 
the one walks as if she were straddling after a go-cart, 
and the other takes too masculine a stride. I shall not- 
endeavour to deprive either country of its share of 
beauty; but must say, that of all objects on this earth 
an English farmer's daughter is most charming. Every 
woman there is a complete beauty, while the higher 
class of women want many of the requisites to make 
them even tolerable. 

Their pleasures here are very dull though very va- 
rious. You may smoke, you may doze, you may go to 



64 SELECTED LETTERS 

the Italian comedy, as good an amusement as either of 
the former. This entertainment always brings in 
Harlequin, who is generally a magician, and in conse- 
quence of his diabohcal art performs a thousand tricks 
on the rest of the persons of the drama, who are all fools. 
I have seen the pit in a roar of laughter at this humour 
when with his sword he touches the glass from which 
another was drinking. 'Twas not his face they laughed 
at, for that was masked. They must have seen some- 
thing vastly queer in the wooden sword that neither I 
nor you, sir, were you there, could see. 

In winter, when their canals are frozen, every house 
is forsaken, and all people are on the ice; sleds drawn 
by horses, and skating, are at that time the reigning 
amusements. They have boats here that slide on the 
ice, and are driven by the winds. When they spread 
all their sails they go more than a mile and a half a 
minute, and their motion is so rapid the eye can 
scarcely accompany them. Their ordinary manner of 
travelling is very cheap and very convenient: they sail 
in covered boats drawn by horses; and in these you are 
sure to meet people of all nations. Here the Dutch 
slumber, the French chatter, and the English play at 
cards. Any man who likes company may have them 
to his taste. For my part I generally detached myself 
from all society, and was wholly taken up in observing 
the face of the country. Nothing can equal its beauty; 
wherever I turn my eye fine houses, elegant gardens, 
statues, grottos, vistas, present themselves; but when 
you enter their towns you are charmed beyond descrip- 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 65 

tion. No misery is to be seen here; every one is use- 
fully employed. 

Scotland and this country bear the highest contrast. 
There hills and rocks intercept every prospect: here 
'tis all a continued plain. There you might see a well- 
dressed duchess issuing from a dirty close; ^ and here 
a dirty Dutchman inhabiting a palace. The Scotch 
may be compared to a tulip planted in dung; but I 
never see a Dutchman in his own house but I think of 
a magnificent Egyptian temple dedicated to an ox. 
Physic is by no means here taught so well as in Edin- 
burgh; and in all Leyden there are but four British 
students, owing to all necessaries being so extremely 
dear and the professors so very lazy (the chemical pro- 
fessor excepted) that we don't much care to come 
hither. I am not certain how long my stay here may 
be; however, I expect to have the happiness of seeing 
you at Kilmore, if I can, next March. 

Direct to me, if I am honoured with a letter from you, 
to Madame Diallion's, at Leyden. 

Thou best of men, may Heaven guard and preserve 
you, and those you love. 

Oliver Goldsmith 

3. Oliver Goldsmith to Mr. Griffiths 

January, 1759 
Sir,— 

I know of no misery but a jail to which my own im- 
prudences and your letter eeems to point. I have seen 



66 SELECTED LETTERS 

it inevitable these three or four weeks, and, by heavens! 
request it as a favour, — as a favour that may prevent 
something more fatal. I have been some years strug- 
gling with a wretched being — with all that contempt 
that indigence brings with it — with all those passions 
which make contempt insupportable. What, then, has 
a jail that is formidable? I shall at least have the so- 
ciety of wretches, and such is to me true society. I tell 
you, again and again, that I am neither able nor willing 
to pay you a farthing, but I will be punctual to any 
appointment you or the Jailor shall make; thus far, at 
least, I do not act the sharper, since, unable to pay my 
own debts one way, I would generally give some secur- 
ity another. No, sir; had I been a sharper — had I been 
possessed of less good-nature and native generosity, 
I might surely now have been in better circumstances. 

I am guilty, I own, of meannesses which poverty 
unavoidably brings with it: my reflections are filled 
with repentance for my imprudence, but not with any 
remorse for being a villain: that may be a character 
you unjustly charge me with. Your books, I can assure 
you, are neither pa^vned nor sold, but in the custody 
of a friend, from whom my necessities obliged me to 
borrow some money. Whatever becomes of my person, 
you shall have them in a month. It is very possible 
both the reports you have heard and your own sug- 
gestions may have brought you false information with 
respect to my character; it is very possible that the man 
whom you now regard with detestation may inwardly 
burn with ;2:ratef ul resentment. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 67 

It is very possible that, upon a second perusal of the 
letter I sent you, you may see the workings of a mind 
strongly agitated with gratitude and jealousy. If such 
circumstances should appear, at least spare invective 
till my book with Mr. Dodsley ^ shall be published, and 
then, perhaps, you may see the bright side of a mind, 
when my professions shall not appear the dictates of 
necessity, but of choice. 

You seem to think Mr. Milner knew me not. Perhaps 
so; but he was a man I shall ever honour; but I have 
friendships only with the dead! I ask pardon for taking 
up so much time; nor shall I add to it by any other 
professions than that I am, sir, your humble servant, 

Oliver Goldsmith 

P. S. I shall expect impatiently the result of your 
resolutions. 

4. Oliver Goldsmith to Mrs. Bunhury 

London, [?] 1772 
Madam, — 

I read your letter with all that allowance which 
critical candor could require, but after all find so much 
to object to, and so much to raise my indignation, that 
I cannot help giving it a serious answer. — I am not so 
ignorant, madam, as not to see there are many sar- 
casms contained in it, and solecisms^ also. (Solecism 
is a word that comes from the town of Soleis in Attica, 
among the Greeks, built by Solon, and applied as we 



68 SELECTED LETTERS 

use the word Kidderminster for curtains from a town 
also of that name — but this is learning you have no 
taste for!) — I say, madam, there are many sarcasms 
in it, and solecisms also. But not to seem an ill-natured 
critic, ril take leave to quote your own words, and give 
you my remarks upon them as they occur. You be- 
gin as follows: 

I hope, my good Doctor, you soon will be here, 
And your spring-velvet coat very smart will appear, 
To open our ball the first day of the year. 

Pray, madam, where did you ever find the epithet 
''good,'' applied to the title of doctor? Had you called 
me ''learned doctor,'' or "grave doctor," or "noble 
doctor," it might be allowable, because they belong 
to the profession. But, not to cavil at trifles, you talk 
of my "spring-velvet coat," and advise me to wear 
it the first day of the year, that is, in the middle of 
winter! — a spring-velvet coat in the middle of winter!!! 
That would be a solecism indeed! and yet to increase 
the inconsistence, in another part of your letter you 
call me a beau. Now, on one side or other, you must 
be wrong. If I am a beau, I can never think of wearing 
a spring-velvet in winter: and if I am not a beau, why 
then, that explains itself. But let me go to your two 
next strange lines: 

And bring with you a wig, that is modish and gay, 
To dance with the girls that are makers of hay. 

The absurdity of making hay at Christmas you 
yourself seem sensible of: you say your sister will 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 69 

laugh; and so indeed she well may! The Latins have 
an expression for a contemptuous kind of laughter, 
^^naso contemnere adunco;^' that is, to laugh with a 
crooked nose. She may laugh at you in the manner 
of the ancients if she thinks fit. But now I come to 
the most extraordinary of all extraordinary proposi- 
tions, which is, to take your and your sister^s advice 
in playing at loo.^ The presumption of the offer raises 
my indignation beyond the bounds of prose; it inspires 
me at once with verse and resentment. I take advice 
and from whom? You shall hear. 

First let me suppose, what may shortly be true, 

The company set, and the word to be Loo: 

All smirking, and pleasant, and big with adventure, 

And ogling the stake which is fix'd in the centre. 

Round and round go the cards, while I inwardly damn 

At never once finding a visit from Pam. 

I lay down my stake, apparently cool. 

While the harpies about me all pocket the pool. 

I fret in my gizzard, yet, cautious and sly, 

I wish all my friends may be bolder than I: 

Yet still they sit snug, not a creature will aim 

By losing their money to venture at fame. 

'Tis in vain that at niggardly caution I scold, 

'Tis in vain that I flatter the brave and the bold; 

All play their own way, and they think me an ass, . . 

''What does Mrs. Bunbury?" . . "I, Sir? I pass." 

*'Pray what does Miss Horneck? take courage, come do." 

''Who, I? let me see, sir, why I must pass too." 

Mr. Bunbury frets, and I fret Uke the devil, 

To see them so cowardly, lucky, and civil. 

Yet still I sit snug, and continue to sigh on, 

'Till, made by my losses as bold as a lion, 



70 SELECTED LETTERS 

I venture at all, while my avarice regards 

The whole pool as my own. . . ''Come, give me five cards." 

''Well done!^' cry the ladies. "Ah, Doctor, that's good! 

The pool's very rich . . ah! the Doctor is loo'd!" 

Thus foil'd in my courage, on all sides perplext, 

I ask for advice from the lady that's next: 

"Pray, ma'am, be so good as to give your advice; 

Don't you think the best way is to venture for't twice?" 

"I advise," cries the lady, "to try it, I own. . . 

"Ah! the doctor is loo'd! Come, Doctor, put down." 

Thus, playing, and playing, I still grow more eager, 

And so bold, and so bold, I'm at last a bold beggar. 

Now, ladies, I ask, if law-matters you're skill'd in, 

Whether crimes such as yours should not come before Fielding:^ 

For giving advice that is not worth a straw, 

May well be call'd picking of pockets in law; 

And picking of pockets, with which I now charge ye, 

Is, by quinto Elizabeth, Death without Clergy. ^ 

What justice, when both to the Old Bailey ^ brought! 

By the gods, I'll enjoy it, tho' tis but in thought! 

Both are plac'd at the bar, with all proper decorum, 

With bunches of fennel, and nosegays before 'em; 

Both cover their faces with mobs and all that. 

But the judge bids them, angrily, take off their hat. 

When uncover'd, a buzz of inquiry runs round, 

"Pray what are their crimes?" . . "They've been pilfering 

found." 
"But, pray, whom have they pilfer'd?" . . "A doctor, I hear." 
*'Whatj yon solemn-faced j odd-looking man that stands nearf^^ 
"The same." . . "What a pity! how does it surprise one. 
Two handsomer culprits I never set eyes on!^^ 
Then their friends all come round me with cringing and leering. 
To melt me to pity, and soften my swearing. 
First Sir Charles advances with phrases well-strung, 
"Consider, dear Doctor, the girls are but young." 
"The younger the worse," I return him again, 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 71 

"It shows that their habits are all dyed in grain." 
''But then they^re so handsome, one's bosom it grieves." 
''What signifies handsome, when people are thieves?" 
''But where is your justice? their cases are hard." 
"What signifies ^'z^s^zce.^ I want the reward,'^ 

^^ There's the parish of Edmonton offers forty pounds; 
there's the parish of St. Leonard Shoreditch offers 
forty pounds; there's the parish of Tyburn, from the 
Hog-in-the-pound to St. Giles's watchhouse, offers 
forty pounds, — I shall have all that if I convict them!'' 

"But consider their case! . . it may yet be your own! 
And see how they kneel! Is your heart made of stone? " 
This moves: . . so at last I agree to relent, 
For ten pounds in hand, and ten pounds to be spent. 

I challenge you all to answer this; I tell you, you 
cannot. It cuts deep. But now for the rest of the 
letter: and next — but I want room — so I believe I 
shall battle the rest out at Barton some day next 
week. — I don't value you all! 

O. G. 



IX 

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was sent by the American 
Colonies to England and France on diplomatic missions. He 
wrote with ease, simplicity, and clearness. His letters are full of 
the homely wisdom, shrewdness, and prudence that character- 
ized Franklin. To his wife, Deborah, the ''dear child '^ of his 
letters; to his daughter Sarah Bache, wife of the postmaster- 
general; to Miss Stevenson, an English acquaintance; and to 
Madame Brillon, a brilliant young French woman, who corrected 
Franklin's French, he wrote interesting letters, describing his 
experiences. 



1. Benjamin Franklin to Mrs, Deborah Franklin 

London, 19 Feb., 1758 
My dear Child: — 

I have wrote you several long letters lately. Last 
night I received yours of the first and sixth of Jan- 
uary, which gave me the great pleasure of hearing that 
you and my little family are well. 

Your kind advice about getting a chariot, I had taken 
some time before; for I found, that, every time I walked 
out, I got fresh cold; and the hackney coaches at this 
end of the town, where most people keep their own, are 
the worst in the whole city, miserable, dirty, broken, 
shabby things, unfit to go into when dressed clean, and 
such as one would be ashamed to get out of at any 
gentleman's door. As to burning wood, it would answer 

72 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 73 

no end, unless one would furnish all one^s neighbours 
and the whole city with the same. The whole town is 
one great smokey house, and every street a chimney, 
the air full of floating seacoal soot, and you never get 
a sweet breath of what is pure, without riding some 
miles for it into the country. 

I send you by Captain Budden a large case, and a 
small box. In the large case is another small box, con- 
taining some Enghsh china; viz. melons and leaves for 
a dessert of fruit and cream, or the like, a bowl remark- 
able for the neatness of the figures, made at Bow, near 
this city; some coffee cups of the same; a Worcester 
bowl, ordinary. To show the difference of workman- 
ship, there is something from all the china works in 
England; and one old true china basin mended, of an 
odd color. The same box contains four silver salt 
ladles, newest but ugliest, fashion; a little instrument 
to core apples; another to make little turnips out of 
great ones; six coarse breakfast cloths; they are to 
spread on the tea-table, for nobody breakfasts here on 
the naked table, but on the cloth they set a large tea 
board with the cups. There is also a little basket, a 
present from Mrs. Stevenson to Sally. 

In the great case, besides the little box, is contained 
some carpeting for a best room floor. There is enough 
for one large or two small ones, it is to be sewed to- 
gether, the edges being first felled down, and care taken 
to make the figures meet exactly; there is bordering for 
the same. This was my fancy. Also two large fine 
Flanders bed ticks, and two pair of large superfine 



74 SELECTED LETTERS 

blankets, two fine damask table-cloths and napkins, 
and forty-three ells of Ghentish sheeting Holland. 
These you ordered. There are also fifty-six yards of 
cotton, printed curiously from copper plates, a new in- 
vention, to make bed and window curtains; and seven 
yards of chair bottoms, printed in the same way, very 
neat. These were my fancy; but Mrs. Stevenson tells 
me I did wrong not to buy both of the same colour. 
Also seven yards of printed cotton, blue ground, to 
make you a gown. I bought it by candlelight, and 
liked it then, but not so well afterwards. If you do not 
fancy it, send it as a present from me to sister Jenny. 
There is a better gown for you, of flowered tissue, six- 
teen yards, of Mrs. Stevenson's fancy, cost nine guineas; 
and I think it a great beauty. 

There are also snuffers, a snuffstand, and extin- 
guisher, of steel, which I send for the beauty of the 
work. The extinguisher is for spermaceti candles only, 
and is of a new contrivance, to preserve the snuff upon 
the candle. There is some music Billy bought for his 
sister, and some pamphlets for the Speaker, and for 
Susy Wright. A mahogany and a little shagreen box, 
with microscopes and other optical instruments loose, 
are for Mr. Alison, if he likes them; if not, put them in 
my room until I return. I send the invoice of them, 
and I wrote to him formerly the reason of my exceeding 
his orders. There are also two sets of books, a present 
from me to Sally, The World and The Connoisseur. 
My love to her. 

I forgot to mention another of my fancyings, viz. a 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 75 

pair of silk blankets, very fine. They are of a new kind, 
were just taken in a French prize, and such were never 
seen in England before. They are called blankets, but 
I think they will be very neat to cover a summer bed, 
instead of a quilt or counterpane. I had no choice, so 
you will excuse the soil on some of the folds; your 
neighbour Foster can get it off. I also forgot, among the 
china, to mention a large fine jug for beer, to stand in 
the cooler. I fell in love with it at first sight; for I 
thought it looked hke a fat jolly dame, clean and tidy, 
with a neat blue and white calico gown on, good na- 
tured and lovely, and put me in mind of — somebody. 
It has the coffee cups in it, packed in best crystal salt, 
of a peculiar nice flavour, for the table, not to be pow- 
dered. 

I hope Sally applies herself closely to her French and 
music, and that I shall find she has made great pro- 
ficiency. The harpsichord I was about, and which was 
to have cost me forty guineas, Mr. Stanley advises 
me not to buy; and we are looking out for another, 
one that has been some time in use, and is a tried good 
one, there being not so much dependence on a new one, 
though made by the best hands. Sally's last letter to 
her brother is the best wrote that of late I have seen 
of hers. I only wish she was a little more careful of 
her spelling. I hope 'she continues to love going to 
church, and would have her read over and over again 
the Whole Duty of Man and the Lady^s Library. 

Look at the figures on the china bowl and coffee cups, 
with your spectacles on; they will bear examining. 



76 SELECTED LETTERS 

I have made your compliments to Mrs. Stevenson. 
She is indeed very obhging, takes great care of my 
health, and is very diligent when I am any way indis- 
posed; but yet I have a thousand times wished you 
with me, and my little Sally with her ready hands and 
feet to do, and go, and come, and get what I wanted. 
There is a great difference in sickness between being 
nursed with that tender attention, which proceeds from 

sincere Love; and [The remainder of this letter is 

lost.] 

2. Benjamin Franklin to Miss Mary Stevenson 

Paris, 14 Sept., 1767 
Dear Polly, — 

I am always pleased with a letter from you, and I 
flatter myself you may be sometimes pleased in receiv- 
ing one from me, though it should be of little impor- 
tance; such as this, which is to consist of a few occa- 
sional remarks made here, and in my journey hither. 

Soon after I left you in that agreeable society at 
Bromley, I took the resolution of making a trip with 
Sir John Pringle into France. We set out on the 28th 
past. All the way to Dover we were furnished with 
postchaises, hung so as to lean forward, the top coming 
down over one's eyes, like a hood, as if to prevent one's 
seeing the country, which being one of my great pleas- 
ures, I was engaged in perpetual disputes with the inn- 
keepers, hostlers, and postilions, about getting the 
straps taken up a hole or two before, and let down as 
much behind, they insisting that the chaise leaning for- 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 77 

ward was an ease to the horses, and that the contrary- 
would kill them. I suppose the chaise leaning forward 
looks to them like a willingness to go forward, and that 
its hanging back shows reluctance. They added other 
reasons, that were no reasons at all, and made me, as 
upon a hundred other occasions, almost wish that man- 
kind had never been endowed with a reasoning faculty, 
since they know so little how to make use of it, and so 
often mislead themselves by it, and that they had been 
furnished with a good sensible instinct instead of it. 

At Dover, the next morning, we embarked for Calais 
with a number of passengers, who had never before 
been at sea. They would previously make a hearty 
breakfast, because, if the wind should fail, we might 
not get over till supper time. Doubtless they thought, 
that, when they had paid for their breakfast, they had 
a right to it, and that when they had swallowed it, they 
were sure of it. But they had scarce been out half an 
hour, before the sea laid claim to it, and they were 
obliged to deliver it up. So that it seems there are 
uncertainties, even beyond those between the cup and 
the lip. If ever you go to sea, take my advice, and live 
sparingly a day or two beforehand. The sickness, if 
any, will be lighter and sooner over. We got to Calais 
that evening. 

Various impositions we suffered from boatmen, por- 
ters, and the like, on both sides of the water. I know 
not which are most rapacious, the Enghsh or French; 
but the latter have, with their knavery, most politeness. 

The roads we found equally good with ours in Eng- 



78 SELECTED LETTERS 

land, in some places paved with smooth stones, like 
our new streets, for many miles together, and rows of 
trees on each side, and yet there are no turnpikes. But 
then the poor peasants complained to us grievously, 
that they were obliged to work upon the roads full two 
months in the year, without being paid for their labour. 
Whether this is true, or whether, like Englishmen, they 
grumble, cause or no cause, I have not yet been able 
fully to inform myself. 

The women we saw at Calais, on the road, at Bou- 
logne, and in the inns and villages, were generally of 
dark complexions; but arriving at Abbeville we found 
a sudden change, a multitude of both women and men 
in that place appearing remarkably fair. Whether 
this is owing to a small colony of spinners, wool-combers, 
and weavers, brought hither from Holland with the 
woollen manufactory about sixty years ago, or to their 
being less exposed to the sun, than in other places, 
their business keeping them much within doors, I know 
not. Perhaps, as in some other cases, different causes 
may club in producing the effect, but the effect itself 
is certain. Never was I in a place of greater industry, 
wheels and looms going in every house. 

As soon as we left Abbeville, the swarthiness re- 
turned. I speak generally; for here are some fair 
women at Paris, who, I think, are not whitened by art. 
As to rouge, they don't pretend to imitate nature in 
laying it on. There is no gradual diminution of the 
colour, from the full bloom in the middle of the cheek to 
the faint tint near the sides, nor does it show itself 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 79 

differently in different faces. I have not had the honour 
of being at any lady's toilette to see how it is laid on, 
but I fancy I can tell you how it is or may be done. 
Cut a hole of three inches diameter in a piece of paper; 
place it on the side of your face in such a manner, as 
that the top of the hole may be just under the eye; then, 
with a brush dipped in the colour, paint face and paper 
together; so when the paper is taken off, there will re- 
main a round patch of red exactly the form of the hole. 
This is the mode, from the actresses on the stage up- 
wards through all ranks of ladies to the princesses of 
the blood; but it stops there, the Queen not using it, 
having in the serenity, complacence, and benignity, 
that shine so eminently in, or rather through her coun- 
tenance, sufficient beauty, though now an old woman, 
to do extremely well without it. 

You see I speak of the Queen as if I had seen her; 
and so I have, for you must know I have been at court. 
We went to Versailles ^ last Sunday, and had the honour 
of being presented to the King; he spoke to both of us 
very graciously and very cheerfully, is a handsome 
man, has a very lively look, and appears younger than 
he is. In the evening we were at the Grand Couvertj 
where the family sup in public. The table was half a 
hollow square, the service gold. When either made a 
sign for drink, the word was given by one of the waiters; 
A boire pour le Roi,^ or A boir pour la Reine. Then two 
persons came from within, the one with wine and the 
other with water in carafes; each drank a little glass 
of what he brought, and then put both the carafes with 



80 SELECTED LETTERS 

a glass on a salver, and then presented it. Their dis- 
tance from each other was such, as that other chairs 
might have been placed between any two of them. An 
officer of the court brought us up through the crowd 
of spectators, and placed Sir John so as to stand be- 
tween the Queen and Madame Victoire. The King 
talked a good deal to Sir John, asking many questions 
about our royal family; and did me, too, the honour 
of taking some notice of me; that is saying enough; 
for I would not have you think me so much pleased 
with this King and Queen, as to have a whit less regard 
than I used to have for ours. No Frenchman shall go 
beyond me in thinking my own King and Queen the 
very best in the world, and the most amiable. 

Versailles has had infinite sums laid out in building it 
and supplying it with water. Some say the expenses 
exceeded eighty millions sterling. The range of build- 
ings is immense; the garden-front most magnificent, 
all of hewn stone; the number of statues, figures, 
urns, &c., in marble and bronze of exquisite workman- 
ship, is beyond conception. But the water-works are 
out of repair, and so is a great part of the front next the 
town, looking with its shabby, half-brick walls, and 
broken windows, not much better than the houses in 
Durham Yard. There is, in short, both at Versailles 
and Paris, a prodigious mixture of magnificence and 
negligence, with every kind of elegance except that of 
cleanliness, and what we call tidiness. Though I must 
do Paris the justice to say, that in two points of cleanli- 
ness they exceed us. The water they drink, though 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 81 

from the river, they render as pure as that of the best 
spring, by filtering it through cisterns filled with sand; 
and the streets with constant sweeping are fit to walk 
in, though there is no paved footpath. Accordingly, 
many well dressed people are constantly seen walking 
in them. The crowd of coaches and chairs ^ for this 
reason is not so great. Men, as well as women, carry 
umbrellas in their hands, which they extend in case of 
rain or too much sun; and, a man with an umbrella 
not taking up more than three foot square, or nine 
square feet of the street, when, if in a coach, he would 
take up two hundred and forty square feet, you can 
easily conceive, that, though the streets here are narrow, 
they may be much less encumbered. They are ex- 
tremely well paved, and the stones, being generally 
cubes, when worn on one side, may be turned and be- 
come new. 

The civilities we everywhere receive give us the 
strongest impressions of the French politeness. It 
seems to be a point settled here universally, that 
strangers are to be treated with respect; and one has 
just the same deference shown one here by being a 
stranger, as in England by being a lady. The custom- 
house officers at Port St. Dennis, as we entered Paris, 
were about to seize two dozen of excellent Bordeaux 
wane given us at Boulogne, and which we brought with 
us; but as soon as they found we were strangers, it was 
immediately remitted on that account. At the Church 
of Notre Dame, where we went to see a magnificent 
illumination, with figures, &c., for the deceased Dau- 



g2 SELECTED LETTERS 

phiness/ we found an immense crowd, who were kept 
out by guards; but, the officer being told that we were 
strangers from England, he immediately admitted us, 
accompanied and showed us every thing. Why don't 
we practice this urbanity to Frenchmen? Why should 
they be allowed to outdo us in any thing? 

Here is an exhibition of painting, like ours in London, 
to which multitudes flock daily. I am not connoisseur 
enough to judge which has most merit. Every night, 
Sundays not excepted, here are plays or operas; and, 
though the weather has been hot, and the house full, 
one is not incommoded by the heat so much as with us in 
winter. They must have some way of changing the air, 
that we are not acquainted with. I shall inquire into it. 
Travelling is one way of lengthening life, at least in 
appearance. It is but about a fortnight since we left 
London, but the variety of scenes we have gone through 
makes it seem equal to six months living in one place. 
Perhaps I have suffered a greater change, too, in my 
own person, than I could have done in six years at 
home. I had not been here six days, before my tailor 
and perruquier ^ had transformed me into a Frenchman. 
Only think what a figure I make in a little bag-wig and 
with naked ears! They told me I was become twenty 
years younger, and looked very gallant. 

This letter shall cost you a shilling, and you may con- 
sider it cheap, when you reflect, that it has cost me at 
least fifty guineas to get into the situation, that enables 
me to write it. Besides, I might, if I had stayed at 
home, have won perhaps two shillings of you at cribbage. 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 83 

By the way, now I mention cards, let me tell you that 
quadrille is now out of fashion here, and English whist 
all the mode at Paris and the court. 

And pray look upon it as no small matter, that, sur- 
rounded as I am by the glories of the world, and amuse- 
ments of all sorts, I remember you, and Dolly, and 
all the dear good folks at Bromley. It is true, I cannot 
help it, but must and ever shall remember you all with 
pleasure. 

Need I add that I am particularly, my dear good 
friend, yours most affectionately, 

B. Franklin 

3. Benjamin Franklin to Mr. Strahan 

Philadelphia, July 5, 1775 
Mr. Strahan, 

You are a Member of Parliament, and one of that 
majority, which has doomed my country to destruc- 
tion. You have begun to burn our towns and murder 
our people. Look upon your hands! They are stained 
with the blood of your relations! You and I were long 
friends. You are now my enemy, — and I am 

Yours, 

B. Franklin 

4. Benjamin Franklin to Mrs, Sarah Bache 

^ ^ Passy, June 3, 1779 

Dear Sally, 

I have before me your letters of Oct. 22, and Jan. 

17th : they are the only ones I received from you in the 



g4 SELECTED LETTERS 

course of eighteen months. If you knew how happy 
your letters make me, and considered how many mis- 
carry, I think you would write oftener. 

The clay medallion of me you say you gave to Mr. 
Hopkinson was the first of the kind made in France. 
A variety of others have been made since of different 
sizes; some to be set in the lids of snuff boxes, and some 
so small as to be worn in rings; and the numbers sold 
are incredible. These, with the pictures, busts, and 
prints (of which copies upon copies are spread every- 
where), have made your father's face as well known as 
that of the moon, so that he durst not do any thing that 
would oblige him to run away, as his phiz would dis- 
cover him wherever he should venture to show it. It 
is said by learned etymologists, that the name doll, for 
the images children play with, is derived from the word 
Idol. From the number of dolls now made of him, he 
may be truly said, in that sense, to be i-doll-ized in 
this country. ^ 

I think you did right to stay out or town till the 
summer was over, for the sake of your child's health. 
I hope you will get out again this summer, during the 
hot months; for I begin to love the dear little creature 
from your description of her. 

I was charmed with the account you gave me of 
your industry, the tablecloths of your own spinning, 
etc.; but the latter part of the paragraph, that you had 
sent for linen from France because weaving and flax 
were gro\vn dear, alas, that dissolved the charm; and 
your sending for long black pins, and lace, and feathers! 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 85 

disgusted me as much as if you had put salt into my 
strawberries. The spinning, I see, is laid aside, and 
you are to be dressed for the ball! You seem not to 
know, my dear daughter, that, of all the dear things in 
this world, idleness is the dearest, except mischief. 

The project you mention, of removing Temple^ from 
me, was an unkind one. To deprive an old man, sent 
to serve his country in a foreign one, of the comfort of 
a child to attend him, to assist him in health and take 
care of him in sickness, would be cruel, if it was prac- 
ticable. In this case it could not be done; for, as the 
pretended suspicions of him are groundless, and his 
behaviour in every respect unexceptionable, I should 
not part with the child, but with the employment. 
But I am confident, that, whatever may be proposed 
by weak or malicious people, the Congress is too wise 
and too good to think of treating me in that manner. 

Ben, if I should live long enough to want it, is like 
to be another comfort to me. As I intend him for a 
Presbyterian as well as a republican, I have sent him 
to finish his education at Geneva. He is much grown, 
in very good health, draws a little, as you will see by the 
enclosed, learns Latin, writing, arithmetic, and danc- 
ing, and speaks French better than English. He made 
a translation of your last letter to him, so that some of 
your works may now appear in a foreign language. He 
has not been long from me. I send the accounts I have 
of him, and I shall put him in mind of writing to you. 

When I began to read your account of the high 
prices of goods, ^^a pair of gloves seven dollars, a yard 



86 SELECTED LETTERS 

of common gauze twenty-four dollars, and that it now 
required a fortune to maintain a family in a very plain 
way/' I expected you would conclude with telling me, 
that everybody as well as yourself was grown frugal 
and industrious; and I could scarce believe my eyes 
in reading forward, that '^ there never was so much 
pleasure and dressing going on,'' and that you yourself 
wanted black pins and feathers from France to appear, 
I suppose, in the mode! 

This leads me to imagine, that perhaps it is not so 
much that the goods are grown dear, as that the money 
is grown cheap, as every thing else will do when ex- 
cessively plenty; and that people are still as easy nearly 
in their circumstances, as when a pair of gloves might 
be had for half a crown. The war indeed may in some 
degrees raise the prices of goods, and the high taxes 
which are necessary to support the war may make our 
frugality necessary; and, as I am always preaching that 
doctrine, I cannot in conscience or in decency encourage 
the contrary, by my example, in furnishing my children 
with foolish modes and luxuries. I therefore send all 
the articles you desire, that are useful and necessary, 
and omit the rest; for, as you say you should ''have 
great pride in wearing any thing I send, and showing 
it as your father's taste," I must avoid giving you an 
opportunity of doing that with either lace or feathers. 
If you wear your cambric ruffles as I do, and take care 
not to mend the holes, they will come in time to be 
lace; and feathers, my dear girl, may be had in Amer- 
ica from every cock's tail. 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 87 

If you happen again to see General Washington, 
assure him of my very great and sincere respect, and 
tell him, that all the old generals here amuse themselves 
in studying the accounts of his operations, and approve 
highly of his conduct. 

Present my affectionate regards to all friends that 
inquire after me, particularly Mr. DufSeld and family, 
and write oftener, my dear child, to your loving father, 

B. Franklin 



X 

Thomas Gray (1716-1771), author of "The Elegy written in a 
Country Churchyard/^ was a versatile letter-writer. He com- 
bined the learning of the classical scholar with the love of nature 
characteristic of the new school of romantic poets, of whom 
Wordsworth was the leader. Two of his correspondents were the 
Rev. James Brown of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, who was joint 
executor of Gray's will; and Dr. Thomas Wharton, also of Cam- 
bridge, who was one of the forerunners of the romantic revival. 

1. Thomas Gray to Dr. Thomas Wharton 

Florence, March 12, 1740 
My dear, dear Wharton, 

(Which is a dear more than I give anybody else. It 
is very odd to begin with a parenthesis, but) you may 
think me a beast, for not having sooner wrote to you, 
and to be sure a beast I am; now, when one owns it, 
I do not see what you have left to say. I take this op- 
portunity to inform you (an opportunity I have had 
every week this twelvemonth) that I arrived safe at 
Calais, and am at present at Florence, a city in Italy 
in I do not know how many degrees north latitude. 
Under the Line ^ I am sure it is not, for I am at this 
instant expiring with cold. 

You must know, that, not being certain what cir- 
cumstances of my history would particularly suit your 
curiosity, and knowing that all I had to say to you would 
overflow the narrow limits of many a good quire of 

88 



THOMAS GRAY 89 

paper, I have taken this method of laying before you 
the contents, that you may pitch upon what you please, 
and give me your orders accordingly to expatiate there- 
upon; for I conclude you will write to me, won't you? 
Oh yes, when you know, that in a week I set out for 
Rome, and that the Pope is dead, and that I shall be 
(I should say, God willing), if nothing extraordinary 
intervene, and if I am alive and well, and in all human 
probabihty, at the coronation of a new one. Now, as 
you have no other correspondent there, and as, if you 
do not, I certainly shall not write again (observe my 
impudence), I take it to be your interest to send me a 
vast letter full of all sorts of news and politics, and such 
other ingredients as to you shall seem convenient, with 
all decent expedition. In the mean time I have the 
honour to remain, 

Your lofing frind tell deth, 

T. G. 

Proposals for printing by subscription, in 

THIS LARGE LETTER 

The Travels of T. G., Gentleman, which will consist of all the 
following particulars: — 

Chap. 1. — The author arrives at Dover; his conversation with 
the mayor of that corporation; sets out in the pacquet boat; grows 
very sick; with a very minute account of all the circumstances 
thereof; his arrival at Calais; how the inhabitants of that country 
speak French. 

Chap. 2. — How they feed him with soupe, and what soupe is; 
how he meets with a Capucin, and what a Capucin is; how they 
shut him up in a postchaise and send him to Paris; he goes 



90 SELECTED LETTERS 

wondering along during six days, and how there are trees and 
houses just as in England; arrives at Paris without know- 
ing it. 

Chap. 3. — A full account of the river Seine, and of the various 
animals and plants its borders produce; the dissection of a 
duchess, with some copper plates, very curious. 

Chap. 4. — Goes to the Opera, grand orchestra of humstrums, 
bagpipes, salt-boxes, tabors, and pipes; the anatomy of a French 
ear, showing the formation of it to be entirely different from that 
of an English one, and that sounds have a directly contrary effect 
upon one and the other. Farinelli at Paris said to have a fine 
manner, but no voice; a grand ballet, old women with flowers and 
jewels stuck in the curls of their grey hair, red-heeled shoes, and 
roll-ups innumerable, hoops and panniers immeasurable, paint 
unspeakable. 

Chap. 5. — The author takes unto him a tailor; his character; 
how he covers him with silk and fringe, and widens his figure 
with buckram a yard on each side; waistcoat and breeches so 
straight he can neither breathe nor walk; how the barber curls 
him en hequille ^ and a la negligee, and ties a vast solitaire about 
his neck; how the milUner lengthens his ruffles to his fingers^ ends 
and sticks his two arms into a muff; how he cannot stir, and how 
they cut him in proportion to his clothes. 

Chap. 6. — He is carried to Versailles; despises it infinitely; a 
dissertation upon taste; goes to an installation in the chapelle 
royale. Enter the king and fifty fiddlers solus. Kettle drums and 
trumpets, queens and dauphins, princesses and cardinals, incense 
and the mass, old knights making curtsies. 

Chap. 7. — The author goes into the country to Rheims in 
Champaign; stays there three months; what he did there (he 
must beg the reader^s pardon, but has really forgot). 

Chap. 8. — Proceeds to Lyons; the vastness of that city (cannot 
see the streets for houses). A poem upon the confluence of 
the Rhone and the Saone, by a friend of the author^s, very 
pretty. 

Chap. 9. — Makes a journey into Savoy, and in his way visits 



THOMAS GRAY 91 

the Grande Chartreuse; he is set astride upon a mule's back, and 
begins to climb up the mountain, rocks and torrents beneath, 
pine-trees and snows above; horrors and terrors on all sides. 
The author dies of fright. 

Chap. 10. — He goes to Geneva; returns to Lyons; gets a surfeit 
with eating ortolans^ and lampreys; is advised to go into Italy 
for the benefit of the air. 

Chap. 11. — Sets out the latter end of November to cross the 
Alps; he is devoured by a wolf, and how it is to be devoured by 
a wolf. The seventh day he comes to the foot of Mount Cenis. 
How he is wrapped up in bearskins and beaverskins, boots on 
his legs, caps on his head, muffs on his hands, and taffety over his 
eyes; he is placed on a bier, and is carried to heaven by the sav- 
ages blindfold. How he lights among a certain fat nation called 
Clouds; how they are always in a sweat, and never speak; how 
they flock about him, and think him very odd for not doing so 
too. He falls plump into Italy. 

Chap. 12. — He arrives at Turin, goes to Genoa, and from 
thence to Placentia; crosses the river Trebbia; the ghost of Han- 
nibal appears to him; and what it and he says upon the occasion; 
locked out of Parma, in a cold winter's night; the author by an 
ingenious stratagem gains admittance; despises them and that 
city, and proceeds through Reggio to Modena. How the duke 
and duchess lie over their own stables, and go every night to a 
vile Itahan comedy; despises them and it, and proceeds to 
Bologna. 

Chap. 13. — Enters into the dominions of the Pope of Rome; 
the author longs for Bologna sausages and hams. 

Chap. 14. — Observations on antiquities. The author proves 
that Bologna was the ancient Tarentum; that the battle of Sala- 
mis,2 contrary to the vulgar opinion, was fought by land, and not 
far from Ravenna. 

Chap. 15. — His arrival at Florence; account of the city, and 
manners of the inhabitants, with a learned dissertation on the 
true situation of Gomorrah. 

And here will end the first part of these instructive and enter- 



92 SELECTEl^ LETTERS 

taining voyages; the subscribers are to pay twenty guineas, 
nineteen down, and the remainder upon delivery of the book. 
N. B. — A few are printed on the softest royal brown paper, for 
the use of the curious. 

2. Thomas Gray to the Reverend James Brown 

London, Sept. 24, 1761 
Dear Sir, 

I set out at half an hour past four in the morning 
for the Coronation,^ and (in the midst of perils and 
dangers) arrived very safe at my Lord Chamberlain's 
box in Westminster Hall. It was on the left hand of 
the throne, over that appropriated to the foreign min- 
isters. Opposite to us was the box of the Earl Marshal 
and other great officers; and below it that of the princess 
and younger part of the royal family. Next them was 
the royal sideboard. Then below the steps of the 
haut pas ^ were the tables of the nobility, on each side 
quite to the door; behind them boxes for the side- 
boards; over these other galleries for the peers' tickets; 
and still higher the boxes of the Auditor, the Board 
of Green Cloth, &c. All these thronged with people 
head above head, all dressed; and the women with their 
jewels on. In front of the throne was a triomphe of 
foliage and flowers resembling nature, placed on the 
royal table, and rising as high as the canopy itself. 

The several bodies that were to form the procession 
issued from behind the throne gradually and in order, 
and, proceeding down the steps, were ranged on either 
side of hall. All the privy councillors that are common- 



THOMAS GRAY 93 

ers (I think) were there, except Mr. Pitt, mightily 
dressed in rich stuffs of gold and colours, with long 
flowing wigs, some of them comical figures enough. 
The Knights of the Bath, with their high plumage, 
were very ornamental. Of the Scotch peers or peeresses 
that you see in the list very few walked, and of the 
English dowagers as few, though many of them were 
in town, and among the spectators. The princess and 
royal family entered their box. The Queen and then 
the King took their places in their chairs of state, 
glittering with jewels, for the hire of which, besides all 
his own, he paid £9,000; and the dean and chapter 
(who had been waiting without doors a full hour and 
half) brought up the regaha, which the Duke of Ancaster 
received and placed on the table. 

Here ensued great confusion in the delivering them 
out to the lords who were appointed to bear them; 
the heralds were stupid; the great officers knew noth- 
ing of what they were doing. The Bishop of Rochester 
would have dropped the crown if it had not been 
pinned to the cushion, and the King was often obliged 
to call out, and set matters right; but the sword of state 
had been entirely forgot, so Lord Huntingdon was 
forced to carry the lord mayor's two-handed sword 
instead of it. This made it later than ordinary before 
they got under their canopies and set forward. I 
should have told you that the old Bishop of Lincoln, 
with his stick, went doddling by the side of the Queen, 
and the Bishop of Chester had the pleasure of bearing 
the golden paten.^ 



94 SELECTED LETTERS 

When they were gone, we went down to dinner, for 
there were three rooms below, where the Duke of Devon- 
shire was so good as to feed us with great cold sirloins 
of beef, legs of mutton, fillets of veal, and other substan- 
tial viands and liquors, which we devoured all higgledy- 
piggledy, like porters; after which every one scrambled 
up again, and seated themselves. The tables were 
now spread, the cold viands eat, and on the king's 
table and sideboard a great show of gold plate, and a 
dessert representing Parnassus, with abundance of 
figures of Muses, Arts, &c., designed by Lord Talbot. 
This was so high that those at the end of the hall could 
see neither king nor queen at supper. When they re- 
turned it was so dark that the people without doors 
scarce saw anything of the procession, and as the hall 
had then no other light than two long ranges of candles 
at each of the peers' tables, we saw almost as little 
as they, only one perceived the lords and ladies sidling 
in and taking their places to dine; but the instant the 
queen's canopy entered, fire was given to all the lustres 
at once by trains of prepared flax, that reached from 
one to the other. To me it seemed an interval of not half 
a minute before the whole was in a blaze of splendour. 
It is true that for that half minute it rained fire upon 
the heads of all the spectators (the flax falling in large 
flakes) ; and the ladies. Queen and all, were in no small 
terror, but no mischief ensued. It was out as soon as 
it fell, and the most magnificent spectacle I ever beheld 
remained. The King (bowing to the lords as he passed) 
with his cro^vn on his head, and the sceptre and orb 



THOMAS GRAY 95 

in his hands, took his place with great majesty and 
grace. So did the Queen, wdth her crown, sceptre, and 
rod. 

Then supper was served in gold plate. The Earl 
Talbot, Duke of Bedford, and Earl of Effingham, in 
their robes, all three on horseback, prancing and cur- 
veting hke the hobbA^-horses in the Rehearsal, ushered 
in the courses to the foot of the haut pas. The Earl of 
Denbigh carved for the king, the Earl of Holdernesse 
for the Queen. They both eat like farmers. At the 
board's end, on the right, supped the Dukes of York 
and Cumberland; on the left Lady Augusta; all of 
them very rich in jewels. The maple cups, the wafers, 
the faulcons, &c. were brought up and presented in 
form; three persons were knighted; and before ten the 
King and Queen retired. Then I got a scrap of supper, 
and at one o'clock I walked home. So much for the 
spectacle, which in magnificence surpassed every thing 
I have seen. 

Next I must tell you that the Barons of the Cinque 
Ports, ^ who by ancient right should dine at a table on 
the haut paSy at the right hand of the throne, found 
that no provision at all had been made for them, and, 
representing their case to Earl Talbot, he told them, 
''Gentlemen, if you speak to me as High Steward, 
I must tell you there was no room for you; if as Lord 
Talbot, I am ready to give you satisfaction in any 
way you think fit.'' They are several of them gentle- 
men of the best families; so this has bred ill blood. In 
the next place, the City of London found they had no 



96 SELECTED LETTERS 

table neither; but Beckford bullied my Lord High 
Steward till he was forced to give them that intended 
for the Knights of the Bath, and instead of it they 
dined at the entertainment prepared for the great of- 
ficers. When you have read this send it to Pa.^ 



XI 

Horace Walpole, fourth earl of Orford (1717-1797), possessed 
a hobby, 'Hhat stalking horse of the nimble wit/' one of the many 
requisites of a good letter- writer. The villa at Strawberry Hill, 
near Twickenham, on the banks of the Thames, was his play- 
thing and the subject of many of his most delightful letters. After 
alterations covering a quarter of a century, it resembled a Gothic 
castle. Walpole's crowning Hterary achievement is his letters. 
His intimate association with court life enabled him to view many 
events at close range and so write the details vividly. Fashion- 
able scandal, social events, political struggles, his own foibles, 
likes, and dislikes were communicated to his numerous and wide- 
spread correspondents. Sir Horace Mann, to whom he wrote 
London news, was minister to Italy. George Montagu was one 
of his Eton friends. 

1. Horace Walpole ta C. Co 

Strawberry Hill, May 3, 1749 

I am come hither for a few days to repose myself 
after a torrent of diversions, and am writing to you in 
my charming bow-window, with a tranquillity and 
satisfaction which, I fear, I am grown old enough to 
prefer to the hurry of amusements, in which the whole 
world has lived for this last week. We have at last 
celebrated the peace ^ and that as much in extremes as 
we generally do everything, whether we have reason to 
be glad or sorry, pleased or angry. Last Tuesday it 
was proclaimed; the King did not go to St. PauFs, but 
at night the whole town was illuminated. 

97 



98 SELECTED LETTERS 

The next day was what was called a jubilee-mas- 
querade in the Venetian manner at Ranelagh: ^ it had 
nothing Venetian in it, but was by far the best under- 
stood, and the prettiest spectacle I ever saw: nothing 
in a fairy tale ever surpassed it. One of the proprie- 
tors, who is a German and belongs to the court, had 
got my Lady Yarmouth to persuade the King to order 
it. It began at three o'clock, and about five, people of 
fashion began to go. When you entered, you found the 
whole garden filled with masks,^ and spread with tents. 
In one quarter was a May-pole dressed with the gar- 
lands, and people dancing round it to a tabor and pipe 
and rustic music, all masqued, as were all the various 
bands of music, that were disposed in different parts 
of the garden, some like huntsmen with French-horns, 
some like peasants, and a troop of harlequins and 
scaramouches ^ in the little open temple on the mount. 
On the canal was a sort of gondola, adorned with flags 
and streamers, and filled with music, rowing about. 
All round the outside of the amphitheatre were shops 
filled with Dresden china, japan, ^ &c. and all the shop- 
keepers in mask. The amphitheatre was illuminated, 
and in the middle was a circular bower, composed of all 
kinds of firs in tubs, from twenty to thirty feet high: 
under them orange-trees, with small lamps in each 
orange, and below them all sorts of the finest auriculas ^ 
in pots; and festoons of natural flowers hanging from 
tree to tree. Between the arches were firs, and smaller 
ones in the balconies above. There were booths for 
tea and wine, gaming-tables and dancing, and about 



HORACE WALPOLE 99 

• 

two thousand persons. In short, it pleased me more 
than anything I ever saw. It is to be once more, and 
probably finer as to dresses, as there has since been a 
subscription-masquerade, and people will go in their 
rich habits. 

The next day were the fireworks, which by no means 
answered the expense, the length of preparation, and 
the expectation that had been raised : indeed for a week 
before, the town was like a country fair, the streets 
filled from morning to night, scaffolds building where- 
ever you could or could not see; and coaches arriving 
from every comer of the kingdom. This hurry and 
lively scene, with a sight of the immense crowd in the 
park and on every house, the guards, and the machine 
itself, which was very beautiful, was all that was worth 
seeing. The rockets and whatever was thrown up into 
the air succeeded mighty well, but the wheels and all 
that was to compose the principal part, were pitiful 
and ill-conducted, with no changes of coloured fires and 
shapes: the illumination was mean, and lighted so 
slowly that scarce anybody had patience to wait the 
finishing; and then what contributed to the awkward- 
ness of the whole, was the right paviHon catching fire, 
and being burnt down in the middle of the show. The 
King, the Duke, and Princess Emily saw it from the 
library, with their courts : the Prince and Princess with 
their children from Lady Middlesex's, no place being 
provided for them, nor any invitation given to the 
library. The Lords and Commons had galleries built 
for them and the chief citizens along the rails of the 



100 SELECTED LETTERS 

• 

mall : the Lords had four tickets apiece, and each Com- 
moner, at first but two, till the Speaker bounced and 
obtained a third. 

Very little mischief was done, and but two persons 
killed: at Paris there were fortj^ killed, and near three 
hundred wounded, by a dispute between the French 
and Itahans in the management, who, quarrelling for 
precedence in lighting the fires, both lighted at once 
and blew up the whole. Our mob was extremely tran- 
quil, and very unlike those I remember in my father's 
time, when it was a measure in the Opposition to work 
up everything to mischief. We are as much now in the 
opposite extreme, and in general so pleased with the 
peace, that I could not help being struck with a passage 
I read lately in Pasquier, an old French author, who 
says that '^in the time of Francis I, the French used 
to call their creditors Des AngloiSj from the facility 
with which the English gave credit to them in all 
treaties, though they had broken so many.'' On Sat- 
urday we had a serenata at the Opera-house, called 
Peace in Europe, but it was a wretched performance. 

On Monday there was a subscription masquerade, 
much fuller than that of last year, but not so agreeable 
or so various in dresses. The King was well disguised 
in an old-fashioned English habit, and much pleased 
with somebody who desired him to hold their cup as 
they were drinking tea. The Duke had a dress of the 
same kind, but was so immensely corpulent, that he 
looked like Cacofogo, the drunken Captain in Rule a 
Wife and Have a Wife} The Duchess of Richmond was 



HORACE WALPOLE 101 

a lady mayoress in the time of James I, and Lord 
Delawarr, Queen Elizabeth^s porter, from a picture in 
the guard-chamber at Kensington; they were admirable 
masks. Lady Rochford, Miss Evelyn, Miss Bishop, 
Lady Stafford, and Mrs. Pitt were in vast beauty, 
particularly the last, who had a red veil, which made 
her look gloriously handsome. I forgot Lady Kildare. 
Mr. Conway was the Duke in Don Quixote, and the 
finest figure I ever saw. 

Adieu! my dear child; I have been long in arrears to 
you, but I trust you will take this huge letter as an 
acquittal. You see my Villa makes me a good corre- 
spondent; how happy I should be to show it to you, if 
I could, with no mixture of disagreeable circumstances 
to you. I have made a vast plantation! Lord Leicester 
told me the other day that he heard I would not buy 
some old china, because I was laying out all my money 
in trees: ''Yes,'' said I, ''my Lord, I used to love blue 
treeS; but now I hke green ones.'' 

2. Horace Walpole to Sir Horace Mann 

Strawberry Hill, June 12, 1753 

I could not rest any longer with the thought of your 
having no idea of a place of which you hear so much, 
and therefore desired Mr. Bentley to draw you as much 
idea of it as the post would be persuaded to carry from 
Twickenham to Florence. The enclosed enchanted 
little landscape, then, is Strawberry Hill; and I will 
try to explain so much of it to you as will help to let 



102 SELECTED LETTERS 

you know whereabouts we are when we are talking to 
you; for it is uncomfortable in so intimate a correspond- 
ence as ours not to be exactly master of every spot 
where one another is writing, or reading, or saun- 
tering. 

This view of the castle is what I have just finished, 
and is the only side that will be at all regular. Directly 
before it is an open grove, through which you see a field, 
which is bounded by a serpentine wood of all kinds of 
trees, and flowering shrubs, and flowers. The lawn 
before the house is situated on the top of a small hill, 
from whence to the left you see the town and church 
of Twickenham encircling a turn of the river, that 
looks exactly like a seaport in miniature. The opposite 
shore is a most dehcious meadow bounded by Rich- 
mond Hill, which loses itself in the noble woods of the 
park to the end of the prospect on the right, where is 
another turn of the river, and the suburbs of Kingston 
as luckily placed as Twickenham is on the left; and a 
natural terrace on the brow of my hill, with meadows 
of my own down to the river, commands both extremi- 
ties. Is not this a tolerable prospect? You must figure 
that all this is perpetually enlivened by a navigation of 
boats and barges, and by a road below my terrace with 
coaches, post-chaises, wagons, and horsemen con- 
stantly in motion, and the fields speckled with cows, 
horses, and sheep. 

Now you shall walk into the house. The bow-window 
below leads into a little parlor hung with a stone-colour 
Gothic paper and Jackson's Venetian prints, which I 



HORACE WALPOLE 103 

could never endure while they pretended, infamous as 
they are, to be after Titian,^ &c., but when I gave them 
this air of barbarous bas-rehefs, they succeeded to a 
miracle: it is impossible at first sight not to conclude 
that they contain the history of Attila ^ or Tottila, 
done about the very era. From hence, under two 
gloomy arches, you come to the hall and staircase, 
which is impossible to describe to you, as it is the most 
particular and chief beauty of the castle. Imagine the 
walls covered with (I call it paper, but it is really paper 
painted in perspective to represent) Gothic fretwork: 
the lightest Gothic balustrade to the staircase, adorned 
with antelopes (our supporters) bearing shields; lean 
windows fattened with rich saints in painted glass, and 
a vestibule open with three arches on the landing-place, 
and niches full of trophies of old coats of mail, Indian 
shields made of rhinoceroses hides, broadswords, quivers, 
longbows, arrows, and spears — all supposed to be taken 
by Sir Terry Robsart in the holy wars. 

But as none of this regards the enclosed drawing, I 
will pass to that. The room on the ground-floor near- 
est to you is a bed-chamber, hung with yellow paper 
and prints, framed in a new manner, invented by Lord 
Cardigan; that is, with black and white borders printed. 
Over this is Mr. Chute's bed-chamber, hung with red 
in the same manner. The bow-window room's one 
pair of stairs is not yet finished; but in the tower beyond 
it is the charming room where I am now writing to you. 
It is hung with green paper and water-colour pictures; 
has two windows; the one in the drawing looks to the 



104 SELECTED LETTERS 

garden, the other to the beautiful prospect; and the 
top of each glutted with the richest painted glass of the 
arms of England, crimson roses, and twenty other pieces 
of green, purple and historic bits. I must tell you, by 
the way, that the castle, when finished, will have two- 
and-thirty windows enriched with painted glass. 

The room where we always live is hung with a blue 
and white paper in stripes adorned with festoons, and a 
thousand plump chairs, couches, and luxurious settees 
covered with linen of the same pattern, and with a 
bow-window commanding the prospect, and gloomed 
with limes that shade half each window, already dark- 
ened with painted glass in chiaroscuro j^ set in deep blue 
glass. Under this room is a cool little hall, where 
we generally dine, hung with paper to imitate Dutch 
tiles. 

I have described so much, that you will begin to 
think that all the accounts I used to give you of the 
diminutiveness of our habitation were fabulous; but it 
is really incredible how small most of the rooms are. 
The only two good rooms I shall have are not yet built: 
they will be an eating-room and a library, each twenty 
by thirty, and the latter fifteen feet high. For the rest 
of the house I could send it to you in this letter as 
easily as the drawing, only that I should have no where 
to live till the return of the post. The Chinese summer- 
house, which you may distinguish in the distant land- 
scape, belongs to my Lord Radnor. We pique ourselves 
upon nothing but simplicity, and have no carvings, 
gildings, paintings, inlayings, or tawdry businesses. 



HORACE WALPOLE 105 

3. Horace Walpole to George Montagu 

Arlington Street: November 13, 1760 

Even the honeymoon of a new reign ^ don't produce 
events every day. There is nothing but the common 
saying of addresses and kissing hands. The King him- 
self seems all good nature, and wishing to satisfy every- 
body; all his speeches are obliging. I saw him again 
yesterday, and was surprised to find the levee-room had 
lost so entirely the air of the lion's den. This sovereign 
don't stand in one spot, with his eyes fixed royally on 
the ground, and dropping bits of German news; he walks 
about, and speaks to everybody. I saw him after- 
wards on the throne where he is graceful and genteel, 
sits with dignity, and reads his answers to addresses 
well; it was the Cambridge address, carried by the Duke 
of Newcastle in his doctor's gown, and looking Uke the 
Medecin malgre lui? 

Do you know, I had the curiosity to go to the bury- 
ing t'other night; I had never seen a royal funeral; 
nay, I walked as a rag of quality, which I found would 
be, and so it was, the easiest way of seeing it. It is 
absolutely a noble sight. The Prince's chamber, hung 
with purple, and a quantity of silver lamps, the coffin 
under a canopy of purple velvet, and six vast chan- 
deliers of silver on high stands, had a very good effect. 
The ambassador from Tripoli and his son were carried 
to see that chamber. 

The procession, through a line of foot-guards, every 
seventh man bearing a torch, the horse-guards lining 



106 SELECTED LETTERS 

the outside, their officers with drawn sabres and crape 
sashes on horseback, the drums muffled, the fifes, bells 
tolhng, and minute guns, — all this was very solemn. 
But the charm was the entrance of the abbey, where 
we were received by the dean and chapter in rich robes, 
the choir and almsmen bearing torches; the whole 
abbey so illuminated, that one saw it to greater ad- 
vantage than by day; the tombs, long aisles, and fretted 
roof, all appearing distinctly, and with the happiest 
chiaroscuro. There wanted nothing but incense, and 
little chapels here and there, with priests saying mass 
for the repose of the defunct; yet one could not com- 
plain of its not being catholic enough. I had been in 
dread of being coupled with some boy of ten years 
old; but the heralds were not very accurate, and I 
walked with George Grenville, taller and older, to keep 
me in countenance. 

When we came to the Chapel of Henry the Seventh, 
all solemnity and decorum ceased; no order was ob- 
served, people sat or stood where they could or would; 
the yeomen of the guard were crying out for help, op- 
pressed by the immense weight of the coffin; the bishop 
read sadly and blundered in the prayers; the fine 
chapter, Man that is horn of a woman, was chanted, 
not read; and the anthem, besides being immeasurably 
tedious, would have served as well for a nuptial. The 
real serious part was the figure of the Duke of Cumber- 
land, heightened by a thousand melancholy circum- 
stances. He had a dark bro\vn adonis,^ and a cloak of 
black cloth, with a train of five yards. 



HORACE WALPOLE 107 

Attending the funeral of a father could not be pleas- 
ant; his leg extremely bad, yet forced to stand upon it 
near two hours; his face bloated and distorted with his 
late paralytic stroke, which has affected, too, one of 
his eyes; and placed over the mouth of the vault into 
which, in all probability, he must himself so soon de- 
scend; think how unpleasant a situation! He bore it 
all with a firm and unaffected countenance. 

This grave scene was fully contrasted by the bur- 
lesque Duke of Newcastle. He fell into a fit of crying 
the moment he came into the chapel, and flung himself 
back in a stall, the archbishop hovering over him with 
a smelling-bottle; but in two minutes his curiosity 
got the better of his hypocrisy, and he ran about the 
chapel with his glass to spy whp was or was not there, 
spying with one hand, and mopping his eyes with the 
other. Then returned the fear of catching cold; and 
the Duke of Cumberland who was sinking with heat, 
felt himself weighed down, and turning round, found 
it was the Duke of Newcastle standing upon his train, 
to avoid the chill of the marble. It was very theatric 
to look down into the vault, where the coffin lay, at- 
tended by mourners with lights. Clavering, the groom 
of the bed-chamber, refused to sit up with the body, 
and was dismissed by the King's order. 

I have nothing more to tell you. Good night. 

Yours ever. 



XII 

Another master of the art of letter-writing was William 
Cowper (1731-1800). He was a shy, sensitive, lonel}^ man, a 
prey to religious depression, and finally a victim of melancholia. 
He hved at Olney and Weston in the household of Mrs. Unwin, 
for whom he had a sincere affection. Cowper, the lonely recluse, 
finding recreation in gardening, sketching, building a summer 
house, translating Homer, caring for his hares, presents a figure 
unique in EngUsh hterature. To John Newton, a curate, he 
wrote freely about his religious fears. His most delightful letters, 
however, are addressed to Lady Hesketh, his cousin, whose 
visits Cowper anticipated with keenest delight. 

1. William Cowper to Lady Hesketh 

Olney, Feb. 9, 1786 
My dearest Cousin — 

I have been impatient to tell you that I am impatient 
to see you again. Mrs. Unwin partakes with me in all 
my feelings upon this subject, and longs also to see you. 
I should have told you so by the last post, but have 
been so completely occupied that it was impossible 
to do it. And now, my dear, let me tell you once more 
that your kindness in promising us a visit has charmed 
us both. I shall see you again. I shall hear your voice. 
We shall take walks together. I will show you my pros- 
pects, the hovel, the alcove, the Ouse, and its banks, 
everything that I have described. I anticipate the 
pleasure of those days not very far distant, and feel a 

108 



WILLIAM COWPER 109 

part of it at this moment. Talk not of an inn! Men- 
tion it not for your life! We have never had so many 
visitors but we could easily accommodate them all, 
though we have received Unwin, and his wife, and his 
sister, and his son, all at once. My dear, I will not let 
you come till the end of May, or beginning of June, 
because, before that time my green-house will not be 
ready to receive us, and it is the only pleasant room 
belonging to us. When the plants go out we go in. I 
hne it with mats, and spread the floor with mats; and 
there you shall sit, with a bed of mignonette a{ your 
side, and a hedge of honeysuckles, roses, and jasmine; 
and I will make you a bouquet of myrtle every day. 
Sooner than the time I mention the country will not 
be in complete beauty. And I will tell you what you 
shall find at your first entrance. Imprimis, as soon as 
you have entered the vestibule, if you cast a look on 
either side of you, you shall see on the right hand a box 
of my making. It is the box in which have been lodged 
all my hares, and in which lodges Puss at present. But 
he, poor fellow, is worn out with age, and promises to 
die before you can see him. On the right hand stands 
a cupboard, the work of the same author; it was once 
a dove-cage, but I transformed it. Opposite to you 
stands a table, which I also made. But, a merciless 
servant having scrubbed it until it became paralytic, 
it serves no purpose now but of ornament; and all my 
clean shoes stand under it. On the left hand, at the 
farther end of this superb vestibule, you will find the 
door of the parlour, into which I will conduct you, and 



110 SELECTED LETTERS 

where I will introduce you to Mrs. Unwin, unless we 
should meet her before, and where we will be as happy 
as the day is long. Order yourself, my Cousin, to the 
Swan, at Newport, and there you shall find me ready 
to conduct you to Olney. 

My dear, I have told Homer ^ what you say about 
casks and urns, and have asked him whether he is sure 
that it is a cask in which Jupiter keeps his wine. He 
swears that it is a cask, and that it will never be any- 
thing better than a cask to eternity. So if the god is 
content with it, we must even wonder at his taste, and 
be so too. 

Adieu! my dearest, dearest Cousin, 

W. C. 

2. William Cowper to Lady Hesketh 

Olney, May 29, 1786 

Thou dear, comfortable cousin, whose letters, among 
all that I receive, have this property pecuHarly their 
own — that I expect them without trembling, and never 
find anything in them that does not give me pleasure — 
for which, therefore, I would take nothing in exchange 
that the world could give me, save and except that for 
which I must exchange them soon — (and happy shall 
I be to do so,) your own company. That indeed is 
delayed a little too long; to my impatience, at least, it 
seems so, who find the spring, backward as it is, too 
forward, because many of its beauties will have faded 
before you will have an opportunity to see them. We 



WILLIAM COW PER 111 

took our customary walk yesterday in the wilderness 
at Weston, and saw, with regret, the laburnums, 
syringas, and guelder-roses, some of them blown, and 
others just upon the point of blowing, and could not 
help observing — all these will be gone before Lady 
Hesketh comes. Still, however, there will be roses, 
and jasmine, and honey-suckle, and shady walks, and 
cool alcoves, and you will partake them with us. But 
I want you to have a share of everything that is de- 
lightful here, and cannot bear that the advance of the 
season should steal away a single pleasure before you 
can come to enjoy it. 

Every day I think of you, and almost all day long; 
I will venture to say, that even you were never so ex- 
pected in your life. I called last week at the Quaker's 
to see the furniture of your bed, the fame of which had 
reached me. It is, I assure you, superb, of printed 
cotton, and the subject classical. Every morning you 
will open your eyes on Phaeton ^ kneehng to Apollo, 
and imploring his father to grant him the conduct of his 
chariot for a day. May your sleep be as sound as your 
bed will be sumptuous, and your nights at least will 
be provided for. 

I shall send up the sixth and seventh books of the 
Iliad shortly, and shall address them to you. You will 
forward them to the General. I long to show you my 
workshop, and to see you sitting on the opposite side 
of my table. We shall be as close packed as two wax 
figures in an old-fashioned picture-frame. I am writing 
in it now. It is the place in which I fabricate all my 



112 SELECTED LETTERS 

verse in summer time. I rose an hour sooner than 
usual this morning, that I might finish my sheet before 
breakfast, for I must write this day to the General. 

The grass under my windows is all bespangled with 
dew-drops, and the birds are singing in the apple-trees, 
among the blossoms. Never poet had a more commodi- 
ous oratory in which to invoke his Muse. 

I have made your heart ache too often, my poor dear 
cousin, with talking about my fits of dejection. Some- 
thing has happened that has led me to the subject, or 
I would have mentioned them more sparingly. Do 
not suppose, or suspect that I treat you with reserve; 
there is nothing in which I am concerned that you shall 
not be made acquainted with; but the tale is too long 
for a letter. I will only add, for your present satisfac- 
tion, that the cause is not exterior, that it is not within 
the reach of human aid, and that yet I have a hope 
myself, and Mrs. Unwin a strong persuasion, of its re- 
moval. I am indeed even now, and have been for a 
considerable time, sensible of a change for the better, 
and expect, with good reason, a comfortable lift from 
you. 

Guess, then, my beloved cousin, with what wishes I 
look forward to the time of your arrival, from whose 
coming I promise myself not only pleasure, but peace 
of mind, — at least an additional share of it. At present 
it is an uncertain and transient guest with me; but the 
joy with which I shall see and converse with you at 
Olney, may perhaps make it an abiding one. 

W. C. 



WILLIAM COWPER 113 

3. William Cowper to John Newton 

Olney, Aug. 5, 1786 
My dear Friend — 

You have heard of our intended removal. The house 
that is to receive us is in a state of preparation, and, 
when finished, will be both smarter and more com- 
modious than our present abode. But the circumstance 
that recommends it chiefly is its situation. Long con- 
finement in the winter, and indeed for the most part in 
the autumn too, has hurt us both. A gravel-walk, 
thirty yards long, affords but indifferent scope to the 
locomotive faculty: yet it is all that we have had to 
move in for eight months in the year, during thirteen 
years that I have been a prisoner. Had I been con- 
fined in the Tower, ^ the battlements of it would have 
furnished me with a larger space. 

You say well, that there was a time when I was 
happy at Olney; and I am now as happy at Olney 
as I expect to be any where without the presence of 
God. Change of situation is with me no otherwise an 
object than as both Mr. Unwinds health and mine may 
happen to be concerned in it. A fever of the slow and 
spirit-oppressing kind seems to belong to all, except 
the natives, who have dwelt in Olney many years; 
and the natives have putrid fevers. Both they and we, 
I believe, are immediately indebted for our respective 
maladies to an atmosphere encumbered with raw 
vapours issuing from flooded meadows; and we in 
particular, perhaps, have fared worse for sitting so 



114 SELECTED LETTERS 

often, and sometimes for months, over a cellar filled 
with water. These ills we shall escape in the uplands, 
and, as we may reasonably hope, of course, their con- 
sequences. 

But, as for happiness, he that has once had commun- 
ion with his Alaker must be more frantic than ever I 
was yet if he can dream of finding it at a distance 
from Him. I no more expect happiness at Weston 
than here, or than I should expect it m company with 
felons and outlaws. Animal spirits, however, have 
their value, and are especially desirable to him who 
is condenmed to carry a burthen, which at any rate 
will tire him, but which, without their aid cannot fail 
to crush him. The deahngs of God with me are to my- 
self utterly unintelligible. I have never met, either in 
books or in conversation, with an experience at all 
similar to my own. More than a twelvemonth has 
passed since I began to hope that, having walked 
the whole breadth of the bottom of this Red Sea, I 
was beginning to climb the opposite shore, and I pre- 
pared to sing the song of Moses. But I have been dis- 
appointed; these hopes have been blasted; those com- 
forts have been wrested from me. I could not be so 
duped, even by the arch-enemy himself, as to be made 
to question the divine nature of them; but I have been 
made to believe (which, you will say, is being duped 
still more) that God gave them to me in derision and 
took them away in vengeance. Such however is and 
has been my persuasion many a long day, and when 
I shall think on that subject more comfortably, or, as 



WILLIAM COW PER 115 

you will be inclined to tell me, more rationally and 
scripturally, I know not. 

In the meantime, I embrace with alacrity every al- 
leviation of my case, and with the more alacrity be- 
cause whatsoever proves a relief of my distress is a 
cordial to ]\Irs. Un\\in, whose s}Tiipathy with me, 
through the whole of it, has been such that, despair 
excepted, her burthen has been as hea\'^^ as mine. 
Lady Hesketh, by her affectionate behaviour, the 
cheerfulness of her conversation, and the constant 
sweetness of her temper, has cheered us both, and 
Mrs. Unwin not less than me. By her help we get 
change of air and of scene, though still resident at 
Olney, and b}^ her means have intercourse with some 
families in this country with whom, but for her, we 
could never have been acquainted. Her presence here 
would, at any time, even in my happiest days, have 
been a comfort to me, but in the present day I am 
doubly sensible of its value. She leaves nothing un- 
said, nothing undone, that she thinks will be conducive 
to our well-being; and, so far as she is concerned, I 
have nothing to wish but that I could believe her sent 
hither in mercy to myself, — then I should be thankful. 

I am, my dear friend, with Mrs. Un^in's love to 
Mrs. N. and yourself, hers and yours, as ever, 

W. C. 



XIII 

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) is famous mainly for the 
Waverly Novels, but the letter to his daughter-in-law shows that 
he could write letters in a light, playful, spontaneous fashion. 
His son, Walter, had married an heiress of great wealth and taken 
her to Ireland. Sir Walter felt the difference she must experience 
between her own luxurious home and that of a soldier. The 
financial ruin of Scott was a significant event in his life. He 
was involved in the failure of Constable and Ballantyne, but he 
bore the distressing shock with nobility of spirit. At the age of 
fifty-five, he set himself to the task of earning the sum of his 
indebtedness, almost $600,000, and virtually accomplished it. 
If his adversity tested him, it also proved his friends. The Earl 
of Dudley, on hearing of the catastrophe, exclaimed, *^ Scott 
ruined! the author of Waverly ruined! Let every man to whom he 
has given months of delight give him a sixpence, and he will 
rise to-morrow, richer than Rothschild.'^ Dr. Thomas Hughes, 
author of Tom Brown^s Schooldays, was one of his warmest 
friends. 



1. Sir Walter Scott to Mrs. Walter Scott y Dublin 

Abbotsford, March 20, 1825 
My dearest Child, — 

I had the great pleasure of receiving your kind and 
attentive letter from London a few days later than I 
ought to have done, because it was lying here while I 
was absent on a little excursion, of which I have to give 
a most interesting account. Believe me, my love, I am 

116 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 117 

very grateful for the time you bestow on me, and that 
you cannot give so great happiness to any one as to me 
by saying you are well and happy. My daughters, who 
deserve all the affection a father can bestow, are both 
near me, and in safe guardianship, the one under the 
charge of a most affectionate husband, and the other 
imder the eye of her parents. For my sons, I have 
taught them, and what was more difficult, I have 
taught myself the philosophy, that for their own sake 
and their necessary advancement in life, their absences 
from my house must be long, and their visits short; and 
as they are both, I hope, able to conduct themselves 
wisely and honorably, I have learned to be contented to 
hope the best, without making myself or them uneasy 
by fruitless anxiety. 

But for you, my dear Jane, who have come among us 
with such generous and confiding affection, my stoicism 
must excuse me if I am more anxious than becomes a 
philosopher or a hackneyed man of the world, who 
uses in common cases to take that world as it goes. I 
cannot help worrying myself with the question, whether 
the object of such constant and affectionate care may 
not feel less happy than I could wish her, in scenes 
which must be so new, and under privations which must 
be felt by you the more that jouv earlier life has been 
an entire stranger to them. I know Walter^s care and 
affection will soften and avert these as much as possible, 
and if there be anything in the power of old papa to 
assist him in the matter, 3^ou will make him most happy 
by tasking that power to the utmost. I wrote to him 



118 SELECTED LETTERS 

yesterday that he might proceed in bargain for the 
troop, and send me the terms, that I might provide the 
needful, as mercantile folks call it, in time and place 
suitable. The rank of Captain gives, I am aware, a 
degree of consideration which is worth paying for; and 
what is still more, my little Jane, as a Captain's lady, 
takes better accommodation every way than is given 
to a subaltern's. So we must get the troop by all 
means. 

Now I will plague you with no more business, but 
give you an account of myself in the manner of Mr. Jon- 
athan Oldbuck, if ever you heard of such a person. You 
must suppose that you are busy with your work, and 
that I am telUng you some long story or other, and that 
you now and then look round and say eh^ as you do 
when you are startled by a question or an assertion — it 
is not quite eh either, but just a little quiet interjection, 
which shows you are attending. You see what a close 
observer papa is of his child. 

Well then, when, as I calculate (as a Yankee would 
say), you were tossing on the waves of the Irish Chan- 
nel, I was also tossing on the Vadum Scotticum of 
Ptolemy, on my return from the celebrated Urhs 
Orrea of Tacitus. ''Eh!'' says Jane: ''Lord, Walter, 
what can the old gentleman mean?" — "TFms nichts 
davon/^ says the hussar, taking his cigar from under his 
mustaches (no, I beg pardon, he does not take out the 
cigar, because, from the last advices, he has used none 
in his London journey). He says Weiss nichts j however, 
which is, — in French, Je n'en sais rien — in broad 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 119 

Scotch, I neither ken nor care. — Well, you ask Mr. Edge- 
worth, or the chaplain of the regiment, or the first 
scholar you come by — that is to say, you don't attempt 
to pronounce the hieroglyphical word, but you fold 
down the letter just at the place, show the talismanic 
Urbs Orrea and no more, and ask him in which corner of 
the earth Sir Walter can have been wandering? So, 
after a moment's recollection, he tells you that the 
great Roman general, Agricola, was strangely put to his 
trumps at the Urbs Orrea during his campaign in 
Caledonia, and that the ninth legion was surprised 
there by the British, and nearly destroyed; then he 
gets a county history, and a Tacitus, and Sir Robert 
Sibbald's tracts, and begins to fish about, and finds at 
length that the Urbs Orrea is situated in the Kingdom of 
Fife — that it is now called Lochore — that it belonged to 
the Lochores — the DeVallences — the Wardlaws — the 
Malcolms — and Lord knows whom in succession — and 
then, in a sheet wet from the press, he finds it is now the 
property of a pretty and accomplished young lady, 
who, in an unthrift generosity, has given it — with a 
much more valuable present, namely, her own self — to 
a lieutenant of hussars. So there the scholar shuts his 
book, and observes that as there are many cairns and 
tumuli and other memorials upon the scene of action, 
he wonders whether Sir Walter had not the curiosity 
to open some of them. '^Now heaven forbid!'' says 
Jane: ^^I think the old knight has stock enough for 
boring one with his old Border ballads and battles, 
without raising the bones of men who have slept one 



120 SELECTED LETTERS 

thousand years quietly on my own estate to assist 
him/' 

Then I can keep silence no longer, but speak in 
my own proper person. '^Pray, do you not bore me, 
Mrs. Jane, and have not I a right to retaliate? '' — 
^'Eh!'' says the Lady of Lochore, '^how is it possible I 
should bore you, and so many hundred miles between 
us?'' — ^^ That's the very reason," says the Laird of 
Abbotsford, ^^for if you were with me, the thing would 
be impossible — but being, as you say, so many hundred 
miles distant, I am always thinking about you, and 
asking myself an hundred questions which I cannot 
answer; for instance, I cannot go about my little im- 
provements without teasing myself with thinking 
whether Jane would like the greenhouse larger or less — 
and whether Jane would like such line of walk, or such 
another — and whether that stile is not too high for 
Jane to step over." — ^'Dear papa," says Jane, ^^your 
own style is really too high for my comprehension." 

Well, then, I am the most indulgent papa in the 
world, and so you see I have turned over a new leaf. 
The plain sense of all this rambling stuff, which escapes 
from my pen as it would from my tongue, is that I have 
visited for a day, with Isaac Bayley, your dominions 
of Lochore, and was excellently entertained, and as 
happy as I could be where everything was putting me in 
mind that she was absent whom I could most have 
wished present. It felt, somehow, like an intrusion, 
and as if it was not quite right that I should be in 
Jane's house, while Jane herself was amongst strangers: 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 121 

this is the sort of false colouring which imagination 
gives to events and circumstances. 

Well, but I was much pleased with all I saw, and 
particularly with the high order Mr. Bayley has put 
everything into; and I climbed Bennarty hke a wild 
goat, and scrambled through the old crags like a wild- 
cat, and pranced through your pastures like a wild- 
buck (fat enough to be in season though), and squat- 
tered through your drains like a wild-duck, and had 
nearly lost myself in your morasses like the ninth 
legion, and visited the old castle, which is not a stupid 
place, and in short, wandered from Dan to Beersheba,^ 
and tired myself as effectually in your dominions as I 
did you in mine upon a certain walk to the Rhymer's 
Glen. I had the offer of your pony, but the weather 
being too cold, I preferred walking. A cheerful little 
old gentleman, Mr. Birrel, and Mr. Grieg the clergy- 
man, dined with us, and your health was not for- 
gotten. — On my retreat (Border fashion) I brought 
away your pony and the little chaise, believing that 
both will be better under Peter Mathieson's charge 
than at Lochore, in case of its being let to strangers. 
Don't you think Jane's pony will be taken care of? 

The day we arrived, the weather was gloomy, and 
rainy — the climate sorrowful for your absence, I sup- 
pose; the next, a fine sunny frost; the third, when I 
came off, so checkered with hail showers as to prevent a 
visit I had meditated to two very interesting persons in 
the neighborhood. ''The Chief Commissioner and 
Charles Adam, I suppose?" — ''Not a bit; guess again." 



122 SELECTED LETTERS 

'^Oh, Mr. Beaton of Contal, or Mr. Sym of Blair?''— 
'^Not a bit; guess again.'' — ^' I won't guess any more." — 
Well, then, it was two honest gentlemen hewn in 
stone — some of the old knights of Lochore, who were 
described to me as lying under your gallery in the kirk; 
but as I had no reason to expect a warm reception from 
them, I put off my visit till some more genial season. 

This puts me in mind of Warwick unvisited, and of 
my stupidity in not letting you know that the church 
is as well worth seeing as the castle, and you might have 
seen that, notwithstanding the badness of the morning. 
All the tombs of the mighty Beauchamps and Nevilles 
are to be seen there, in the most magnificent style of 
Gothic display, and in high preservation. However, 
this will be for another day, and you must comfort 
yourself that life has something still to show. 

I trust you will soon find yourself at Edgeworthstown, 
where I know you will be received with open arms, for 
Miss Edgeworth's ^ kindness is equal to her distinguished 
talents. 

This is a letter of formidable length, but our bargain 
is, long or short, just as the humor chances to be, and 
you are never to mend a pen or think upon a sentence, 
but write whatever comes readiest. My love to Walter. 
I am rather anxious to know if he has got his horses 
well over, and whether all his luggage has come safe. 
I am glad you have got a carriage to your mind; it is the 
best economy to get a good one at once. Above all, 
I shall be anxious to hear how you like the society of the 
ladies of the 15th. I know my Jane's quiet prudence 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 123 

and good sense will save her from the risk of making 
sudden intimacies, and induce her to consider for a 
little while which of her new companions may suit her 
best; in the meanwhile being civil to all. 

You see that I make no apology for writing silly 
letters; and why should you think that I can think 
yours stupid? There is not a stupid bit about them, nor 
any word, or so much as a comma, that is not interesting 
to me. Lady Scott and Anne send their kindest love 
to you, and grateful compliments to Mrs. Edgeworth, 
Miss Edgeworth, our friend Miss Harriet, and all the 
family of Edgeworthstown. Good-night, darling, and 
take good care of yourself. — I always remain your 
affectionate father, 

Walter Scott 

2. Sir Walter Scott to Mrs. Thomas Hughes 

Abbotsford, February 5, 1826 

My dear Mrs. Hughes and my worthy Doctor: 

I write immediately to give you the information 
which your kindness thinks of importance. I shall 
certainly lose a very large sum by the failure of my 
booksellers, whom all men considered as worth £150,000 
and who I fear will not cut up, as they say, for one 
fourth of the money. But looking at the thing from the 
worst point of view I cannot see that I am entitled to 
claim the commiseration of any one, since I have made 
an arrangement for settling these affairs to the satisfac- 
tion of every party concerned so far as yet appears, 



124 SELECTED LETTERS 

which leaves an income with me ample for all the com- 
forts and many of the elegancies of life, and does not 
in the slightest degree innovate on any of my com- 
forts. 

So what title have I to complain? I am far richer in 
point of income than Generals and Admirals who have 
led fleets and armies to battle. My family are all 
provided for in present or in prospect, my estate re- 
mains in my family, my house and my books in my 
own possession. I shall give up my house in Edinburgh 
and retire to Abbotsford, where my wife and Anne will 
make their chief residence; during the time our courts 
sit, when I must attend, I will live at my club. If 
Anne wishes to see a little of the world in the gay season, 
they can have lodgings for two or three weeks; this 
plan we had indeed formed before it became imperative. 

At Abbotsford we will cut off all hospitality, which 
latterly consumed all my time, which was worse than 
the expense; this I intended to do at any rate; we part 
with an extra servant or two, manage our household 
economically, and in five years, were the public to stand 
my friend, I should receive much more than I have lost. 
But if I only pay all demands I shall be satisfied. 

I shall be anxious to dispose of Mr. Charles as soon 
as his second year of Oxford is ended. I think of trying 
to get him into some diplomatic line, for which his 
habits and manners seem to suit him well. 

I might certainly have borrowed large sums. But to 
what good purpose? I must have owed that money, 
and a sense of obligation besides. Now, as I stand, the 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 125 

Banks are extremely sensible that I have been the 
means of great advantages to their estabhshments and 
have afforded me all the facilities I can desire to make 
my payments; and as they gained by my prosperity, 
they are handsomely disposed to be indulgent to my 
adversity, and what can an honest man wish for more? 
Many people will think that because I see company 
easily my pleasures depend on society. But this is not 
the case; I am by nature a very lonely animal, and 
enjoy myself at getting rid from a variety of things 
connected with public business, etc., which I did because 
they were fixed on me but I am particularly happy to 
be rid of. And now let the matter be at rest forever. It 
is a bad business, but might have been much worse. 

I am my dear friends 
Most truly yours, 
Walter Scott 



XIV 

Sydney Smith (1771-1845) inherited his talent and eccentricity 
from his father and his gaiety from his maternal grandfather, 
who was of French extraction. He was educated at Winchester 
and Oxford, and in 1796 was ordained priest. Dm-ing his residence 
in London he was in great demand socially and became well 
known as a preacher and lectm*er. Everything he wrote — sermons, 
essays, lectm^es, and letters — was characterized by vigor, pic- 
turesqueness, and liveliness. His wit and humor are proverbial. 
In 1809 he moved to a country parish where he had no educated 
neighbors within seven miles, but he won the hearts of his parish- 
ioners by his cheerful ministry. He said that doctoring his parish- 
ioners was his only rural amusement. His friends hoped he would 
be made a bishop, but he felt that his appointment was doubtful 
and forbade their efforts. He retained his high spirits, his wit, 
and power of good-natured ridicule to the last. The following 
letter shows him in a playful, whimsical mood. 

Sydney Smith to Miss 

London, July 22d, 1835 

Lucy, Lucy, my dear child, don't tear your frock; 
tearing frocks is not of itself a proof of genius; but 
write as your mother writes, act as your mother acts; 
be frank, loyal, affectionate, simple, honest; and then 
integrity or laceration of frock is of little import. 

And Lucy, dear child, mind your arithmetic. You 
know, in the first sum of yours I ever saw, there was a 
mistake. You had carried two (as a cab is licensed to 
do), and you ought, dear Lucy, to have carried but one. 

126 



SYDNEY SMITH 127 

Is this a trifle? What would life be without arithmetic 
but a scene of horrors? 

You are going to Boulogne, the city of debts, peopled 
by men who never understood arithmetic; by the time 
you return, I shall probably have received my first 
paralytic stroke, and shall have lost all recollection 
of you; therefore I now give you my parting advice. 
Don't marry anybody who has not a tolerable under- 
standing and a thousand a year, and God bless yoU; 
dear child. 

Sydney Smith 



XV 

Charles Lamb (1775-1834), essayist, critic, and letter-writer, 
had a wonderful capacity for friendship. He wrote voluminously 
and was fortunate in his correspondents. Between 1811 and 
1820, he was "at home'' on Wednesday and Thursday nights, 
entertaining his friends, making a reputation as a conversational- 
ist, and inspiring conversation. For thirty-three years he was an 
accountant in the East India House, where he said his true 
'^works'' were produced. His letters show a refined and ex- 
quisite humor, a cordial vein of pleasantry, and at times a whim- 
sical, nonsensical mood, that easily explain why his obscure 
apartment was the gathering place of such men as Coleridge, 
Manning, HazHtt, and sometimes Wordsworth. 

Miss Hutchinson, to whom he wrote, was a sister of Mrs. 
Wordsworth and took care of an invahd relation, Mrs. Monk- 
house, at Ramsgate. The letter to Dibdin, an invalid staying 
at Hastings for his health, is in Lamb's characteristic mood. 
Thomas Manning travelled extensively and Lamb kept him in- 
formed about the old London circle of friends. Bernard Barton, 
the Quaker, was the fortunate recipient, not only of Lamb's 
letters, but of Fitzgerald's as well. Charles Lamb loved people, 
throngs of people, and the evidences of human activity. His 
affection for London was a passion. His letters show "the true 
inside of him." 

1. Charles Lamb to William Wordsworth 

Jan. 30th, 1801 

I ought before this to have replied to your very kind 
invitation into Cumberland. With you and your sister 
I could gang anywhere; but I am afraid whether I 
shall ever be able to afford so desperate a journey. 

128 



CHARLES LAMB 129 

Separate from the pleasure of your company, I don't 
much care, if I never see a mountain in my life. I have 
passed all my days in London, until I have formed as 
many and intense local attachments as any of you 
mountaineers can have done with dead Nature. The 
lighted shops of the Strand and Fleet Street; the innu- 
merable trades, tradesmen, and customers, coaches, 
waggons, play-houses; all the bustle and wickedness 
round about Covent Garden; ^ the watchmen, drunken 
scenes, rattles; life awake, if you awake, at all hours of 
the night; the impossibility of being dull in Fleet 
Street; the crowds, the very dirt and mud, the sun 
shining upon houses and pavements, the print-shops, 
the old book-stalls, parsons cheapening ^ books, coffee- 
houses, steams of soups from kitchens, the pantomimes 
— London itself a pantomime and a masquerade — all 
these things work themselves into my mind, and feed 
me, without a power of satiating me. The wonder of 
these sights impels me into nightwalks about her 
crowded streets, and I often shed tears in the motley 
Strand from fulness of joy at so much life. All these 
emotions must be strange to you; so are your rural 
emotions to me. But consider, what must I have been 
doing all my life, not to have lent great portions of 
my heart with usury to such scenes? 

My attachments are all local, purely local. I have 
no passion (or have had none since I was in love, and 
then it was the spurious engendering of poetry and 
books), for groves and valleys. The rooms where I 
was born, the furniture which has been before my 



130 SELECTED LETTERS 

eyes all my life, a book-case which has followed me 
about like a faithful dog, (only exceeding him in knowl- 
edge,) wherever I have moved, old chairs, old tables, 
streets, squares, where I have sunned myself, my old 
school, — these are my mistresses. Have I not enough, 
without your mountains? I do not envy you. I should 
pity you, did I not know that the mind will make 
friends of any thing. Your sun, and moon, and skies, 
and hills, and lakes, affect me no more, or scarcely 
come to me in more venerable characters, than as a 
gilded room with tapestry and tapers, where I might 
live with handsome visible objects. I consider the 
clouds above me but as a roof beautifully painted, but 
unable to satisfy the mind : and at last, like the pictures 
of the apartment of a connoisseur, unable to afford 
him any longer a pleasure. So fading upon me, from 
disuse, have been the beauties of Nature, as they 
have been confinedly called; so ever fresh, and green, 
and warm are all the inventions of men, and assemblies 
of men in this great city. 

Give my kindest love, and my sister's, to D. and 
yourself; and a kiss from me to little Barbara Lewth- 
waite. Thank you for liking my play. 

C. L. 

2. Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning 

24th Sept. 1802, London 
My dear Manning, — 

Since the date of my last letter I have been a 
traveller. A strong desire seized me of visiting remote 



CHARLES LAMB 131 

regions. My first impulse was to go and see Paris. 
It was a trivial objection to my aspiring mind, that I 
did not understand a word of the language, since I 
certainly intend some time in my life to see Paris, and 
equally certainly intend never to learn the language; 
therefore that could be no objection. However, I am 
very glad I did not go, because you had left Paris (I see) 
before I could have set out. I believe, Stdddart promis- 
ing to go with me another year, prevented that plan. 

My final resolve was, a tour to the Lakes. I set out 
with Mary to Keswick, without giving Coleridge any 
notice, for my time, being precious, did not admit of it. 
He received us with all the hospitality in the world, 
and gave up his time to show us all the wonders of the 
country. He dwells upon a small hill by the side of 
Keswick, in a comfortable house, quite enveloped on 
all sides by a net of mountains : great floundering bears 
and monsters they seemed, all couchant and asleep. 
We got in in the evening, travelling in a post-chaise 
from Penrith, in the midst of a gorgeous sunshine, 
which transmuted all the mountains into colours, 
purple, &c., &c. We thought we had got into fairy- 
land. But that went off, (as it never came again; while 
we stayed we had no more fine sunsets;) and we entered 
Coleridge's comfortable study just in the dusk, when 
the mountains were all dark with clouds upon their 
heads. Such an impression I never received from ob- 
jects of sight before, nor do I suppose I can ever again. 
Glorious creatures, fine old fellows, Skiddaw,^ &c. I 
never shall forget ye, how ye lay about that night, like 



132 SELECTED LETTERS 

an intrenchment; gone to bed, as it seemed for the night, 
but promising that ye were to be seen in the morning. 
Coleridge had got a blazing fire in his study; which is 
a large antique, ill-shaped room, with an old-fashioned 
organ, never played upon, big enough for a church, 
shelves of scattered folios, an ^Eolian harp, and an 
old sofa, half bed, &c. And all looking out upon the 
last fading view of Skiddaw, and his broad-breasted 
brethren: what a night! 

Here w^e stayed three full wrecks, in which time I 
visited Wordsworth's cottage, where we stayed a day 
or two with the Clarksons, (good people, and most 
hospitable, at whose house we tarried one day and 
night,) and saw Lloyd. ^ The Wordsworths were gone 
to Calais. They have since been in London, and past 
much time w^ith us: he is now gone into Yorkshire to 
be married. So we have seen Keswick, Grasmere, 
Ambleside, Ulswater, (where the Clarksons live,) 
and a place at the other end of Ulswater; I forget the 
name : to which we travelled on a very sultry day, over 
the middle of Helvellyn. We have clambered up to 
the top of Skiddaw, and I have waded up the bed of 
Lodore. In fine, I have satisfied myself that there is 
such a thing as that which tourists call romanticy 
which I very much suspected before: they make such 
a spluttering about it, and toss their splendid epithets 
around them, till they give as dim a light as at four 
o'clock next morning the lamps do after an illumination. 
Mary was excessively tired when she got about half- 
way up Skiddaw, but we came to a cold rill, (than which 



CHARLES LAMB 133 

nothing can be imagined more cold, running over 
cold stones,) and with the reinforcement of a draught 
of cold water she surmounted it most manfully. Oh, 
its fine black head, and the bleak air atop of it, with a 
prospect of mountains all about and about, making 
you giddy; and then Scotland afar off, and the border 
countries so famous in song and ballad! It was a day 
that will stand out, like a mountain, I am sure in my 
life. 

But I am returned, (I have now been come home 
near three weeks; I was a month out,) and you cannot 
conceive the degradation I felt at first, from being 
accustomed to wander free as air among mountains, 
and bathe in rivers without being controlled by any 
one, to come home and work, I felt very little, I had 
been dreaming I was a very great man. But that is 
going off, and I find I shall conform in time to that 
state of life to which it has pleased God to call me. 
Besides, after all. Fleet Street and the Strand are better 
places to live in for good and all than amidst Skiddaw. 
Still, I turn back to those great places where I wandered 
about, participating in their greatness. After all, I 
could not live in Skiddaw. I could spend a year, two, 
three years among them, but I must have a prospect 
of seeing Fleet Street at the end of that time, or I should 
mope and pine away, I know. Still, Skiddaw is a fine 
creature. Farewell. Write again quickly, for I shall 
not like to hazard a letter, not knowing where the fates 
have carried you. Farewell, my dear fellow. 

C. Lamb 



134 SELECTED LETTERS 

3. Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning 

Southampton Buildings, 

28th March, 1809 
Dear Manning, — 

I sent you a long letter by the ships which sailed the 
beginning of last month, accompanied with books, &c. 
Since I last wrote Holcroft is dead. He died on Thurs- 
day last. So there is one of your friends whom you 
will never see again! Perhaps the next fleet may bring 
you a letter from Martin Burney, to say that he writes 
by desire of Miss Lamb, who is not well enough to write 
herself, to inform you that her brother died on Thurs- 
day last, 14th June, &c. But I hope not, I should be 
sorry to give occasion to open a correspondence be- 
tween Martin and you. This letter must be short, for 
I have driven it off to the very moment of doing up 
the packets; and besides, that which I refer to above is 
a very long one; and if you have received my books, 
you will have enough to do to read them. 

While I think on it, let me tell you, we are moved. 
Don't come any more to Mitre-Court Buildings. We 
are at 34, Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane, and 
shall be here till about the end of May; then we remove 
to No. 4, Inner Temple Lane, where I mean to live 
and die; for I have such horror of moving, that I would 
not take a benefice ^ from the King if I was not indulged 
with non-residence. What a dislocation of comfort is 
comprised in that word ''moving!'' Such a heap of 
little nasty things, after you think all is got into the 



CHARLES LAMB 135 

cart: old dredging-boxes, worn-out brushes, gallipots, 
vials, things that it is impossible the most necessitous 
person can ever want, but which the women, who pre- 
side on these occasions, will not leave behind if it was 
to save your soul. They'd keep the cart ten minutes 
to stow in dirty pipes and broken matches, to show their 
economy. Then you can find nothing you want for 
many days after you get into your new lodgings. You 
must comb your hair with your fingers, wash your hands 
without soap, go about in dirty gaiters. Were I Diog- 
enes,^ I would not move out of a kilderkin into a hogs- 
head, though the first had had nothing but small beer 
in it, and the second reeked claret. Our place of final 
destination, — I don't mean the grave, but No. 4, 
Inner Temple Lane, — looks out upon a gloomy church- 
yard-like court, called Hare Court, with three trees 
and a pump in it. Do you know it? I was born near 
it, and used to drink at that pump when I was six years 
old. 

I think I told you of Godwin's httle book, and of 
Coleridge's prospectus in my last; if I did not, remind 
me of it, and I will send you them, or an account of 
them, next fleet. I have no conveniency of doing it by 

this. Mrs. grows every day in disfavour with me. 

I will be buried with this inscription over me: — ^^Here 
lies C. L., the woman-hater:" I mean that hated one 
woman : for the rest, God bless them ! How do you hke 
the Mandarinesses? ^ Are you on some little footing 
with any of them? This is Wednesday. On Wednes- 
days is my levee. The Captain, Martin, Phillips, (not 



136 SELECTED LETTERS 

the Sheriff,) Rickman, and some more, are constant at- 
tendants, besides stray visitors. We play at whist, 
eat cold meat and hot potatoes, and any gentleman 
that chooses smokes. Why do you never drop in? 
You'll come some day, won't you? 

C. Lamb 

4. Charles Lamb to Miss Hutchinson 

[April 25, 1823] 
Dear Miss H., — 

Mary has such an invincible reluctance to any epis- 
tolary exertion, that I am sparing her a mortification 
by taking the pen from her. The plain truth is, she 
writes such a pimping, mean, detestable hand, that 
she is ashamed of the formation of her letters. There 
is an essential poverty and abjectness in the frame of 
them. They look like begging letters. And then she 
is sure to omit a most substantial word in the second 
draught, (for she never ventures an epistle without a 
foul copy first,) which is obliged to be interlined; which 
spoils the neatest epistle, you know. Her figures, 
1, 2, 3, 4, &c., where she has occasion to express nu- 
merals, as in the date, (25th April 1823,) are not figures, 
but figurantes; ^ and the combined posse go staggering 
up and down shameless, as drunkards in the day-time. 
It is no better when she rules her paper. Her lines '^are 
not less erring'' than her words. A sort of unnatural 
parallel lines, that are perpetually threatening to meet; 
which, you know, is quite contrary to Euclid.^ Her 



CHARLES LAMB 137 

very blots are not bold like this, [here a large blot is irt- 
serted,] but poor smears, half left in and half scratched 
out, with another smear left in their place. I like a 
clear letter; a bold free hand, and a fearless flourish. 
Then she has always to go through them (a second oper- 
ation) to dot her i^s, and cross her fs, I don't think she 
can make a corkscrew if she tried, which has such a fine 
effect at the end or middle of an epistle, and fills up. 

There is a corkscrew! — one of the best I ever drew. 
But if I am to write a letter, let me begin, and not stand 

flourishing, like a fencer at a fair. 

April 25th 1823 

Dear Miss H., — It gives me great pleasure (the letter 
now begins) to hear that you got down so smoothly, 
and that Mrs. Monkhouse's spirits are so good and 
enterprising. It shows whatever her posture may be, 
that her mind at least is not supine. I hope the ex- 
cursion will enable the former to keep pace with its 
outstripping neighbour. Pray present our kindest 
wishes to her and all; (that sentence should properly 
have come into the Postscript, but we airy mercurial 
spirits, there is no keeping us in). ^^Time'^ (as was 
said of one of us) 'Hoils after us in vain.'' I am afraid 
our co-visit with Coleridge was a dream. I shall not 
get away before the end (or middle) of June, and then 
you will be frog-hopping at Boulogne; and besides, I 
think the Gilmans would scarce trust him with us; 
I have a malicious knack at cutting of apron-strings. 
The Saints' days you speak of have long since fled to 
heaven, with Astrsea,^ and the cold piety of the age 



138 SELECTED LETTERS 

lacks fervour ta recall them; only Peter left his key — 
the iron one of the two that ^^ shuts amain ''^ — and that 
is the reason I am locked up. Meanwhile of afternoons 
we pick up primroses at Dalston, and Mary corrects 
me when I call ^em cowslips. God bless you all; and 
pray remember me euphoniously to Mr. Gruvellegan. 
That Lee Priory must be a dainty bower. Is it built 
of flints? — and does it stand at Kingsgate? 

5. Charles Lamb to Bernard Barton 

January 9, 1824 
Dear B. B.,— 

Do you know what it is to succumb under an insur- 
mountable day-mare, an indisposition to do any thing, 
or to be any thing, — a total deadness and distaste — 
a suspension of vitality, — an indifference to locality, — 
a numb, soporifical, good-for-nothingness — an ossifica- 
tion all over, — an oyster-like insensibility to the pass- 
ing events, — a mind-stupor, — a brawny defiance to the 
needles of a thrusting-in-conscience — did you ever 
have a very bad cold with a total irresolution to submit 
to water-gruel processes? This has been for many 
weeks my lot and my excuse — my fingers drag heavily 
over this paper, and to my thinking it is three-and- 
twenty furlongs from here to the end of this demi- 
sheet — I have not a thing to say — ^nothing is of a more 
importance than another — I am flatter than a denial 
or a pancake — emptier than Judge Park's wig when 
the head is in it — duller than a country stage when the 



CHARLES LAMB 139 

actors are off it — a cipher — an o — I acknowledge life at 
all only by an occasional convulsional cough, and a 
permanent phlegmatic pain in the chest — I am weary 
of the world — Life is weary of me. My day is gone into 
Twilight, and I don't think it worth the expense of 
candles — my vnok hath a thief in it, but I can't muster 
courage to snuff it — I inhale suffocation — I can't dis- 
tinguish veal from mutton — nothing interests me — • 
His 12 o'clock, if you told me the world will be at an 
end to-morrow, I should just say, '^will it?" — I have 
not volition enough left to dot my i's — much less to 
comb my e3^ebrows — my eyes are set in my head — my 
brains are gone out to see a poor relation in IVIoorfields, 
and they did not say when they'd come back again — 
my skull is a Grub Street ^ Attic, to let — not so much 
as a joint-stool left in it — my hand writes, not I, from 
habit, as chickens run about a little when their heads 
are off — O for a vigorous fit of gout, toothache, — an 
earwig in my auditory, a fly in my visual organs — pain 
is life — the sharper, the more evidence of life — but this 
apathy, this death — did you ever have an obstinate 
cold, a six or seven weeks' unintermitting chill and sus- 
pension of hope, fear, conscience, and every thing — yet 
I try all I can to cure it, I try wine, and spirits, and 
smoking, and snuff in imsparing quantities, but they all 
only seem to make me worse, instead of better — I sleep 
in a damp room, but it does me no good; I come home 
late o' nights, but do not find any visible amendment. 
Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? 

C. L. 



140 SELECTED LETTERS 

6. Charles Lamb to J. B. Dibdin 

Saturday, September 9, 1826 

An answer is requested 
Dear D., — 

I have observed that a letter is never more acceptable 
than when received upon a rainy day, especially a 
rainy Sunday; which moves me to send you somewhat, 
however short. This will find you sitting after break- 
fast, which you will have prolonged as far as you can 
with consistency to the poor handmaid that has the 
reversion of the tea leaves; making two nibbles of your 
last morsel of stale roll (you cannot have hot new ones 
on the Sabbath), and reluctantly coming to an end, 
because when that is done what can you do till dinner? 
You cannot go to the beach, for the rain is drowning 
the sea, turning rank Thetis ^ fresh, taking the brine 
out of Neptune^s pickles, while mermaids sit upon 
rocks with umbrellas, their ivory combs sheathed for 
spoiling in the wet of waters foreign to them. You 
cannot go to the library, for it's shut. You are not 
religious enough to go to church. it is worth while to 
cultivate piety to the gods, to have something to fill 
up the heart on a wet Sunday! You cannot cast 
accounts, for your ledger is being eaten with moths in 
the Ancient Jewry. You cannot play at draughts, for 
there is none to play with you, and besides there is not 
a draught-board in the house. You cannot go to mar- 
ket, for it closed last night. You cannot look into the 
shops, their backs are shut upon you. You cannot 



CHARLES LAMB 141 

read the Bible, for it is not good reading for the sick and 
the hypochondriacal.^ You cannot while away an hour 
with a friend, for you have no friend round that Wrekin. 
You cannot divert yourself with a stray acquaintance, 
for you have picked none up. You cannot bear the 
chiming of bells, for they invite you to a banquet where 
you are no visitant. You cannot cheer yourself with 
the prospect of tomorrow's letter, for none come on 
Mondays. You cannot count those endless vials on the 
mantlepiece with any hope of making a variation in 
their numbers. You have counted your spiders: your 
Bastile ^ is exhausted. 

You sit and deliberately curse your hard exile from 
all familiar sights and sounds. Anything to deliver you 
from this intolerable weight of ennui. You are too ill 
to shake it off: not ill enough to submit to it, and to 
lie down as a lamb under it. The tyranny of sickness is 
nothing to the cruelty of convalescence: 'tis to have 
thirty tyrants for one. That pattering rain drops on 
your brain. You'll be worse after dinner, for you must 
dine at one to-day, that Betty may go to afternoon 
service. She insists upon having her chopped hay. 
And then when she goes out, who was something to 
you, something to speak to — ^what an interminable 
afternoon you'll have to go thro'. You can't break 
yourself from your locality: you cannot say ^Homorrow 
I set off for Banstead," for you are booked for Wednes- 
day. 

Foreseeing this, I thought a cheerful letter would come 
in opportunely. If any of the little topics for mirth I 



142 SELECTED LETTERS 

have thought upon should serve you in this utter ex- 
tinguishment of sunshine, to make you a httle merry, 
I shall have had my ends. I love to make things 
comfortable. . . . This, which is scratched out was 
the most material thing I had to say, but on maturer 
thoughts I defer it. 

P. S. We are just sitting down to dinner with a 
pleasant party, Coleridge, Reynolds the dramatist, and 
Sam Bloxam: tomorrow (that is today), Liston, and 
Wyat of the Wells, dine with us. IVIay this find you as 
jolly and freakish as we mean to be. 

C. Lamb 



XVI 

In describing English country life or the Moorish civilization 
in Spain, Washington Irving (1783-1859) is equally pleasing, 
whether writing books for the public or letters to familiar friends. 
He writes with a smoothness, ease, and grace characteristic 
of Addison, whom he took for his literary master. Mademoiselle 
BoUviller was a niece of Madame D'Oubril, the wife of the 
Russian Minister to Spain, in whose home Irving was a favorite 
guest during his stay in Madrid. 

6. Washington Irving to Mademoiselle BoUviller 

Seville, May 28, 1828 

I have suffered some time to elapse, my dear Mad- 
emoiselle Antoinette, without replying to your charm- 
ing letter, but I have had a long arrearage of letters to 
pay off to correspondents in Europe and America and 
many lie by me yet unanswered. 0! this continually 
accumulating debt of correspondence! It grows while 
we sleep, and recurs as fast as we can pay it off. Would 
that I had the turn and taste for letter-writing of our 
friend the prince,^ to whom it seems a perfect delight; 
who, like an industrious spider, can sit in that little 
dark room and spin out a web of pleasant fancies from 
his own brain; or rather, to make a more gracious 
comparison, like a honey bee goes humming about the 
world, and when he has visited every flower, returns 
buzz-buzz to his little hive, and works all that he has 

143 



144 SELECTED LETTERS 

collected into a perfect honey-comb of a letter. For 
my part, I know no greater delight than to receive 
letters; but the replying to them is a grievous tax upon 
my negligent nature. I sometimes think one of the 
greatest blessings we shall enjoy in heaven, will be to 
receive letters by every post and never be obliged to 
reply to them. 

Do not think, however, that what I have said applies 
to my correspondence with you; or with that truly good 
boy, the prince. With me it is in letter-writing as in 
conversation, I must feel a particular interest in a 
person to be able to acquit myself with any degree of 
attention and animation in either; but there are those 
with whom it is a real pleasure, both to converse and to 
correspond. It is the number of uninteresting persons 
with whom one must keep up correspondence and 
conversation of mere civility that makes a toil of the 
common intercourse of life. 

You tell me you have been at a bull-fight, and that 
you have renounced all amusements of the kind forever. 
I should be much mistaken in the opinion I have formed 
of you, could you really relish those barbarous spec- 
tacles. Depend upon it, it is neither the better nor the 
braver parts of our nature that is gratified by them. 
There appears to me a mixture of cowardice and ferocity 
in looking on in selfish security and enjoying the perils 
and sufferings of others. The '' divinity that dwells 
within us'' has nothing to do with pleasures of the 
kind; they belong to our earthly, our gross and savage 
nature. I have sunk considerably in my own estima- 



WASHINGTON IRVING 145 

tion since I have found I could derive gratification from 
these sights; I should have been grieved to find you as 
bad in this respect as myself. 

I am sorry to hear that you are to pass your summer 
in Madrid. What a pity that the diplomatic circle 
should be doomed to the sterile monotony of that city 
of the desert; what a residence this Seville might be 
made for a court! Such a heavenly climate and de- 
lightful neighbourhood; such fine rides, such pleasant 
country retreats, such water excursions on the Guadal- 
quiver! I have visited some lovely places in the 
vicinity; and whenever I find any situation peculiarly 
delicious, I am sure to find that it has been a favourite 
resort of those noble fellows, the Moors. 

I made an excursion a few days since down the 
Guadalquiver to an old convent, called S. Juan de 
Alfarache, which is built among the ruins of a Moorish 
'castle, and I dined at a country seat in the neighbour- 
hood, which had been the retreat of some Moorish 
family. You cannot imagine scenery more soft, grace- 
ful, luxuriant, and beautiful. These retreats are built 
along the side of a ridge of hills overlooking the fertile 
valley of the Guadalquiver, and the serpentine windings 
of that river, with Seville and the towers rising at a 
distance, and the Ronda mountains bounding the 
landscape. But consider all this ridge of hills and the 
valley immediately below you a perfect garden, filled 
with oranges, citrons, figs, grapes, pomegranates; 
hedged by the aloe and the Indian fig in blossom; the 
whole country covered with flowers, such as in other 



146 SELECTED LETTERS 

countries are raised in hot-houses, but here growing 
wild; for the very weeds are flowers and aromatic 
plants. Fancy all this lovely landscape rendered fresh 
and sweet by recent showers, the soft air loaded with 
fragrance and the hum of bees on every side, and the 
songs of thousands of nightingales reminding you of 
spring-time and the season of flowers. 

In these country-seats one continually meets with 
the relics of Moorish labour and Moorish taste; channels 
cut into the sides of the hills, through the living rock, in 
search of choice springs of cold and delicate water, and 
basins and fountains to collect it and to cool the courts 
and halls of the mansions. 

Nothing can be more charming than the windings of 
the little river among banks hanging with gardens and 
orchards of all kinds of delicate southern fruits, and 
tufted with flowers and aromatic plants. The nightin- 
gales throng this lovely little valley. Every bend of the 
river presents a new landscape, for it is beset by old 
Moorish mills of the most picturesque forms; each mill 
having an embattled tower — a memento of the valiant 
tenure by which those gallant fellows, the Moors, held 
this earthly paradise, having to be ready at all times for 
war, and as it were to work with one hand and fight 
with the other. It is impossible to travel about Anda- 
lusia and not imbibe a kind feeling for those Moors. 
They deserved this beautiful country. They won it 
bravely; they enjoyed it generously and kindly. No 
lover ever delighted more to cherish and adorn a 
mistress, to heighten and illustrate her charms, and to 



WASHINGTON IRVING 147 

vindicate and defend her against all the world than did 
the Moors to embellish, enrich, elevate, and defend 
their beloved Spain. Everywhere I meet traces of 
their sagacity, courage, urbanity, high poetical feeling, 
and elegant taste. The noblest institutions in this 
part of Spain, the best inventions for comfortable and 
agreeable living, and all those habitudes and customs 
which throw a peculiar and oriental charm over the 
Andalusian mode of living, may be traced to the Moors. 

Whenever I enter these beautiful marble patios, set 
out with shrubs and flowers, refreshed by fountains, 
sheltered with awnings from the sun; where the air is 
cool at noonday, the ear delighted in sultry summer by 
the sound of falling water; where, in a word, a little 
paradise is shut up within the walls of home — I think 
on the poor Moors, the inventors of all these delights. 
I am at times almost ready to join in sentiment with a 
worthy friend and countryman of mine whom I met in 
Malaga, who swears the Moors are the only people that 
ever deserved the country, and prays to heaven they 
may come over from Africa and conquer it again. 

You promise to give me the news of the gay world of 
Madrid. I shall be delighted to receive it from you, but 
you need not go out of the walls of your own house to 
find subjects full of interest for me. Let me have all 
the news you can of your domestic circle; 3"ou have a 
world within yourselves; at least it was all the world to 
me while at Madrid. The prince talks something of 
coming to Seville. Is there any probability of it? I 
should mark the day of his arrival with a white stone. 



148 SELECTED LETTERS 

and would be delighted to be his cicerone. I would 
give all the money in my pocket to be with those dear 
little women at the round table in the saloon, or on the 
grass-plot in the garden, to tell them some marvellous 
tales. 

Give my kind remembrance to M. and Madame 
D'Oubril, and to all the household, large and small. 
Tell my little Marie I kiss her hand and hold myself 
her loyal and devoted knight. If she wishes at any time 
the head of a giant or the tail of a fiery dragon, she has 
but to call upon me. My arm and my court sword are 
always at her command. 

With the greatest regard, your friend, 

Washington Irving 

2. Washington Irving to Mrs, Paris 

Newstead Abbey, January 20, 1832 
My dear Sister : — 

Upwards of a month since I left London with Mr. 
Van Buren and his son, on a tour to show them some in- 
teresting places in the interior, and to give them an 
idea of English country life, and the festivities of an 
old-fashioned English Christmas. We posted in an 
open carriage, as the weather was uncommonly mild, 
and beautiful for the season. Our first stopping place 
was Oxford, to visit the noble collegiate buildings; 
and thence we went to Blenheim, and visited the seat 
of the Duke of Marlborough, one of the finest palaces 
in England. We next passed a night and part of the next 



WASHINGTON IRVING 149 

day at Stratford-on-Avon, visiting the house where 
Shakespeare was born and the church where he hes 
buried. We were quartered at the Httle inn of the 
Red Horse, where I found the same obhging httle 
landlady that kept it at the time of the visit recorded 
in the Sketch Book. You cannot imagine what a fuss 
the httle woman made when she found out who I 
was. She showed me the room I had occupied, in 
which she had hung up my engraved likeness, and she 
produced a poker which was locked up in the archives 
of her house, on which she had caused to be engraved 
^^ Geoffrey Crayon's Sceptre.'^ 

From Stratford we went to Warwick Castle, Kenil- 
worth, and then to Birmingham, where we passed a 
part of three days; continuing our tour, we visited 
Lichfield and its beautiful cathedral, Derby, Notting- 
ham, Newstead Abbey, Hardwick Castle, etc., etc., 
and finally arrived on Christmas eve at Barlborough 
Hall, where we had engaged to remain during the holi- 
days. Here, then, we passed a fortnight, during which 
the old hall was a complete scene of old Enghsh hos- 
pitality. Many of the ancient games and customs, ob- 
solete in other parts of England, are still maintained 
in that part of the country, and are encouraged by Mr. 
Rodes. We accordingly had mummers, and morris 
dancers, and glee singers from the neighbouring villages; 
and great feasting, with the boar's head crowned with 
holly; the wassail bowl, the yule log, snapdragon, etc., 
etc. There was dancing by night in the grand tapestried 
apartments, and dancing in the servants' hall, and all 



150 SELECTED LETTERS 

kinds of merriment. The whole was to have wound up 
by a grand fancy ball on Twelfth Night, to which all 
the gentry of the neighbourhood were invited, when Mr. 
Rodes received news of the death of a relative, which 
put an end to the festivities. 

After leaving the hospitable mansion of Mr. Rodes 
we came to Newstead Abbey, on an invitation from 
Col. Wildman, the present proprietor. Mr. Van Buren 
and his son remained but a couple of days, but I was 
easily prevailed upon to prolong my visit, and have 
now been here about a fortnight; and never has time 
passed away more delightfully. I have found Col. Wild- 
man a most estimable man, warmhearted, generous, 
and amiable, and his wife charming both in character 
and person. The abbey I have already mentioned to 
you in a former letter as being the ancestral mansion 
of Lord Byron, and mentioned frequently in his writ- 
ings. I occupy his room, and the very bed in which he 
slept. The edifice is a fine mixture of the convent and 
the palace, being an ancient abbey of friars granted by 
Henry VIII to the Byron family. At one end is the 
ruin of the abbey church, the Gothic front still standing 
in fine preservation and overrun with ivy. My room 
immediately adjoins it, and hard by is a dark grove 
filled with rooks, who are continually wheeling and 
cawing about the building. What was once the in- 
terior of the church is now a grassy lawn with gravel 
walks, and where the high altar stood is the monument 
erected by Lord Byron to his dog, in which he intended 
his own body should be deposited. 



WASHINGTON IRVING 151 

The interior of the abbey is a complete labyrinth. 
There are the old monkish cloisters, dim and damp, 
surrounding a square, in the centre of which is a gro- 
tesque Gothic fountain. Then there are long corridors 
hung with portraits, and set out with figures in armour, 
that look like spectres. There are ancient state apart- 
ments that have been occupied by some of the British 
sovereigns in their progresses, and which still bear their 
names. These have been restored by Col. Wildman, 
with great taste, and are hung with ancient tapestry 
and quaintly furnished. There are large halls, also, 
some splendidly restored, others undergoing repairs; 
with long vaulted chambers that have served for refec- 
tories and dormitories to the monks in old times. Be- 
hind the edifice is the ancient abbey garden, with great 
terraced walks, balustrades, fish ponds, formal flower 
plots, etc., all kept up in admirable style, and suiting 
the venerable appearance of the building. 

You may easily imagine the charms of such a resi- 
dence connected with the poetical associations with 
the memory of Lord Byron. The solemn and monastic 
look of many parts of the edifice, also, has a most 
mysterious and romantic effect, and has given rise 
to many superstitious fables among the servants and 
the neighbouring peasantry. They have a stor}^ of 
a friar in black who haunts the cloisters, and is said 
to have been seen by Lord Byron. He certainly alludes 
to him in his poems. Then there is a female in white, 
who appeared in the bedroom of a young lady, a cousin 
of Lord Byron, coming through the wall on one side 



152 SELECTED LETTERS 

of the room, and going into the wall on the other side. 
Besides these there is ^^Sir John Byron, the little, with 
the great beard, '^ the first proprietor of the abbey, 
whose portrait in black hangs up in the drawing-room. 
He has been seen by a young lady visitor, sitting by the 
fire-place of one of the state apartments, reading out 
of a great book. I could mention other stories of the 
kind, but these are sufficient to show you that this 
old building is more than usually favoured by ghosts. 

We are here in the centre of Robin Hood's country, 
what once was merry Sherwood forest, though now it is 
an open country. There are some tracts of the forest, 
however, remaining in ancient wildness, with immense 
oaks several hundred years old, mostly shattered and 
hollow, and inhabited by j ackdaws. I have rode through 
the green glades of these monumental forests, and 
pictured to myself Robin Hood and all his renowned 
band of outlaws; and I have visited many points of 
the neighbourhood which still bear traces of him, such 
as Robin Hood's chair, Robin Hood's stable, his well, 
etc., etc., and I have the line of Robin Hood's hills 
in view from the windows of my apartment. I am thus 
in the midst of a poetical region. 

I shall remain here a few days longer and then return 
to London, to attend to my literary affairs, which from 
various circumstances have been a little retarded. 
Give my love to all your household. Ever most affec- 
tionately your brother, 

W. I. 



XVII 

Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786-1846) was an historical 
painter, who wrote as delightfully as he talked. In fact, his 
letters are talks with his friends, expressed with clearness and 
vigor. He had a brilliant and erratic career, full of unfortunate 
conflicts with the Royal Academy. Aniong his friends were 
Scott, Keats, Lamb, Wordsworth, Smithey, Hazlitt, Leigh 
Hunt, Benjamin West, Miss Mitford, Miss Joanna Baillie, and 
Mrs. Siddons. Some of his famous pictures are '' The Judgment 
of Solomon," ^^ Macbeth," and ^'Christ's Entry into Jerusalem." 

Benjamin Robert Haydon to Miss Mitford 

18th August, 1826 

How do you find yourself? I heard you were poorly. 
What are you about? I was happy to hear of 's 



safe arrival again, and I shall be most happy to see 
him, though tell him he will find no more '^Solomons'' 
towering up as a background to our conversations. 
Nothing but genteel-sized drawing-room pocket-history 
— Alexander ^ in a nutshell; Bucephalus no bigger than 
a Shetland pony, and my little girFs doll a giantess to 
my Olympias! 

The other night I paid my butcher; one of the miracles 
of these times, you will say. Let me tell you I have 
all my life been seeking for a butcher whose respect 
for genius predominated over his love of gain. I could 
not make out, before I dealt with this man, his excessive 
desire that I should be his customer; his sly hints as I 

153 



154 SELECTED LETTERS 

passed his shop that he had ^^a bit of South Down, 
very fine; a sweetbread, perfection; and a calf's foot 
that was all jelly without bone!'' 

The other day he called, and I had him sent up into 
the painting-room. I found him in great admiration 
of ^^ Alexander." ''Quite alive. Sir!" ''I am glad you 
think so," said I. ''Yes, Sir, but, as I have said often 
to my sister, you could not have painted that picture, 
Sir, if you had not eat my meat, Sir!" "Very true, 
Mr. Sowerby." "Ah! Sir, I have a fancy for genus, 
Sir!" "Have you, Mr. Sowerby?" "Yes, Sir; Mrs. 
Siddons, Sir, has eat my meat. Sir; never was such 
a woman for chops, Sir!" — and he drew up his beefy, 
shiny face, clean shaved, with a clean blue cravat 
under his chin, a clean jacket, a clean apron, and a 
pair of hands that would pin an ox to the earth if he was 
obstreperous — "Ah ! Sir, she was a wonderful crayture ! " 
"She was, Mr. Sowerby." "Ah, Sir, when she used to 
act that there character, you see (but Lord, such a 
head! as I used to say to my sister) — that there woman. 
Sir, that murders a king between 'em!" "Oh! Lady 
Macbeth." "Ah, Sir, that's it— Lady Macbeth— I 
used to get up with the butler behind her carridge 
when she acted, and, as I used to see her looking quite 
wild, and all the people quite frightened, 'Ah, ha! my 
lady,' said I, 'if it wasn't for my meat, though, you 
wouldn't be able to do that!^'' "Mr. Sowerby, you 
seem to be a man of feeling; will you take a glass of 
wine?" After a bow or two, doA\Ti he sat, and by 
degrees his heart opened. "You see, Sir, I have fed 



BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 155 

Mrs. Siddons, Sir; John Kemble, Sir; Charles Kemble, 
Sir; Stephen Kemble, Sir; and Madame Catalani, 
Sir; Morland the painter, and, I beg your pardon. Sir, 
and you J Sir/^ ^^Mr. Sowerby, you do me honour/' 
^^ Madame Catalani, Sir, was a wonderful woman for 
sweetbreads; but the Kemble family. Sir, the gentle- 
men. Sir, rump-steaks and kidneys in general was their 
taste; but Mrs. Siddons, Sir, she hked chops, Sir, as 
much as you do. Sir,'' &c. &c. 

I soon perceived that the man's ambition was to feed 
genius. I shall recommend you to him; but is he not a 
capital fellow? But a little acting with his remarks 
would make you roar with laughter. Think of Lady 
Macbeth eating chops! Is this not a peep behind the 
curtain? I remember Wilkie saying that at a public 
dinner he was looking out for some celebrated man, 
when at last he caught a glimpse for the first time of 
a man whose books he had read with care for years, 
picking the leg of a roast goose, perfectly abstracted! 

Never will I bring up my boys to any profession that 
is not a matter of necessary want to the world. Paint- 
ing, unless considered as it ought to be, is a mere matter 
of ornament and luxury. It is not yet taken up as it 
should be in a wealthy country like England, and all 
those who devote themselves to the higher branches 
of Art must suffer the penalty, as I have done, and am 
doing. So I was told, and to no purpose. I opposed 
my father, my mother, and my friends, though I am. 
duly gratified by my fame in the obscurest corners. 
Last week a book-stall keeper showed me one of my 



156 SELECTED LETTERS 

own books at his stall, and, by way of recommending 
it, pointed out a sketch of my own on the fly-leaf, 
^' Which,'' said he, ^^I suppose is by Haydon himself. 
Ah ! Sir, he was badly used ^ — a disgrace to our great 
men/' "But he was impudent," said I. "Impudent!" 
said he. "Yes, of course; he depended on their taste 
and generosity too much." " Have you any more of his 
books?" said I. "Oh! I had a great many; but I have 
sold them all, Sir, but this, and another that I will 
never part with." 



XVIII 

George Peabody (1795-1869), American philanthropist, 
amassed a fortune in the mercantile business. He was generous 
in his benefactions, and especially endeared himseK to the South 
by his gifts to the Peabody Educational Fund to promote educa- 
tion in the southern states. He expended £500,000 for the erec- 
tion of dwelling-houses for the working classes in London. His 
letter to Queen Victoria, who offered him a baronetcy, breathes 
the spirit of American democracy and is characteristic of the best 
type of New Englander. 

1. Queen Victoria to George Peabody 

Windsor Castle, March 28, 1866 

The Queen hears that Mr. Peabody intends shortly 
to return to America; and she would be sorry that he 
should leave England without being assured by her- 
self how deeply she appreciates the noble act, of more 
than princely munificence, by which he has sought to 
relieve the wants of her poorer subjects in London. It 
is an act, as the Queen beheves, wholly without parallel; 
and which will carry its best reward in the conscious- 
ness of having contributed so largely to the assistance 
of those who can little help themselves. 

The Queen would not, however, have been satisfied 
without giving Mr. Peabody some public mark of her 
sense of his munificence; and she would gladly have 
conferred upon him either a baronetcy or the Grand 
Cross of the Order of the Bath, but that she under- 

157 



158 SELECTED LETTERS 

stands Mr. Peabody to feel himself debarred from ac- 
cepting such distinctions. 

It only remains, therefore, for the Queen to give Mr. 
Peabody this assurance of her personal feelings; which 
she would further wish to mark by asking him to accept 
a miniature portrait of herself, which she will desire to 
have painted for him, and when finished, can either 
be sent to him in America, or given to him on the re- 
turn which she rejoices to hear he meditates to the 
country that owes him so much. 

2. George Peabody to Queen Victoria 

The Palace Hotel, 
Buckingham Gate, 
London, April 3, 1866 
Madam : — 

I feel sensibly my inability to express in adequate 
terms the gratification with which I have read the 
letter which your Majesty has done me the high honour 
of transmitting by the hands of Earl Russell. 

On the occasion which has attracted your Majesty's 
attention, of setting apart a portion of my property 
to ameliorate the condition and augment the comforts 
of the poor of London, I have been actuated by a deep 
sense of gratitude to God, who has blessed me with 
prosperity, and of attachment to this great country, 
where, under your Majesty's benign rule, I have re- 
ceived so much personal kindness, and enjoyed so 
many years of happiness. Next to the approval of 



GEORGE PEABODY 159 

my own conscience, I shall always prize the assurance 
which your Majesty's letter conveys to me of the ap- 
probation of the Queen of England, whose whole life 
has attested that her exalted station has in no degree 
diminished her s^^mpathy with the humblest of her 
subj ects. The portrait which your Maj esty is graciously 
pleased to bestow on me I shall value as the most 
gracious heirloom that I can leave in the land of my 
birth: where, together with the letter which your Maj- 
esty has addressed to me, it will ever be regarded as an 
evidence of the kindly feeling of the Queen of the United 
Kingdom toward a citizen of the United States. 
I have the honour to be 
Your Majesty's most obedient servant, 

George Peabody 



XIX 

George Gordon, Lord Byron, (1788-1824) was a '^ rhyming 
peer." In 1816 he left England, never to return, and settled first 
at Geneva, where he made the acquaintance of Shelley. Some of 
his best work was written in Venice, Ravenna, and Pisa, where he 
spent two years in close intimacy with Shelley. In 1823 Byron 
sailed from Genoa for Greece, to take active part in the liberation 
of that country from Turkish rule. He died of fever at Misso- 
longhi. One of his most intimate friends was Thomas Moore, the 
Irish poet, to whom he wTote long and frequent letters. Perhaps 
his strongest attachment was for his sister, the Honorable 
Augusta Leigh. 

1. Lord Byron to Thomas Moore 



Kerens to her who long 

Hath waked the poet's sigh! 
The girl who gave to song 

What gold could never buy. 



Newstead Abbey, Sept. 20, 1814 
My dear Moore, 

I am going to be married — that is, I am accepted, and 
one usually hopes the rest will follow. You will think 
her too strait-laced for me, although the paragon of only 
children, and invested with '^golden opinions of all sorts 
of men,'' and '^full of most blest conditions'' as Desde- 
mona herself. Miss Milbanke is the lady, and I have 
her father's invitation to proceed there in my elect 
capacity, — which, however, I cannot do till I have set- 
tled some business in London and got a blue coat. 

She is said to be an heiress, but of that I really know 

160 



LORD BYRON 161 

nothing certainly, and shall not enquire. But I do 
know, that she has talents and excellent qualities; and 
you will not deny her judgment, after having refused 
six suitors and taken me. 

Now, if you have any thing to say against this, pray 
do; my mind's made up, positively fixed, determined, 
and therefore I will listen to reason, because now it can 
do no harm. Things may occur to break it off, but I 
will hope not. In the meantime, I tell you (a secret, 
by the by, — at least, till I know she wishes it to be 
public) that I have proposed and am accepted. You 
need not be in a hurry to wish me joy, for one mayn't be 
married for months. I am going to town to-morrow; but 
expect to be here, on my way there, mthin a fortnight. 

If this had not happened, I should have gone to 
Italy. On my way down, perhaps, you will meet me at 
Nottingham, and come over mth me here. I need not 
say that nothing will give me greater pleasure. I must, 
of course, reform thoroughly; and, seriously, if I can 
contribute to her happiness, I shall secure my own. 
She is so good a person, that — that — in short, I wish 
I was a better. ^ver, etc. 

2. Lord Byron to the Honorable Augusta Leigh 

Bruxelles, Wednesday, 
May^lst, 1816 
My Heart, 

We are detained here for some petty carriage repairs, 
having come out of our way to the Rhine on purpose, 



162 SELECTED LETTERS 

after passing through Ghent, Antwerp, and Mechlin. 
I have written to you twice, — once from Ostend, and 
again from Ghent. I hope most truly that you will re- 
ceive my letters, not as important in themselves, but 
because you wish it, and so do I. It would be difficult 
for me to write anything amusing; this country has 
been so frequently described, and has so little for de- 
scription, though a good deal for observation, that I 
know not what to say of it, and one don't like talking 
only of oneself. We saw at Antwerp the famous basons ^ 
of Bonaparte, for his navy, which are very superb — as 
all his undertakings were, and as for churches, and 
pictures, I have stared at them till my brains are like a 
guide book: — the last (though it is heresy to say so) 
don't please me at all. I think Rubens ^ a very great 
dauber, and prefer Vandyke a hundred times over (but 
then I know nothing about the matter). 

As the Low Countries did not make part of my plan 
(except as a route), I feel a little anxious to get out of 
them. Level roads don't suit me, as thou knowest; it 
must be up hill or down, and then I am more au fait.^ 
Imagine to yourself a succession of avenues with a 
Dutch spire at the end of each, and you see the road; — 
an accompaniment of highly cultivated farms on each 
side, intersected with small canals or ditches, and 
sprinkled with very neat and clean cottages, a village 
every two miles, — and you see the country; not a rise 
from Ostend to Antwerp — a mole hill would make the 
inhabitants think that the Alps had come here on a 
visit; it is a perpetuity of plain and an eternity of pave- 



LORD BYRON 163 

ment (on the road), but it is a country of great apparent 
comfort, and of singular though tame beauty, and, were 
it not out of my way, I should like to survey it less 
cursorily. The towns are wonderfully fine. The ap- 
proach to Brussels is beautiful, and there is a fine palace 
to the right in coming. [Here the sheet ends.] 



XX 

In 1818 Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) left England for 
Italy, where he resided mainly at Naples, Leghorn, and Pisa. 
He was drowned in the Gulf of Spezia, July 8, 1822. Byron, 
also, spent much of his life in Italy; the following letter gives a 
gUmpse of his peculiarities. Shelley felt that the death of Keats 
was hastened by harsh reviews in Blackwood's Edinburgh Maga- 
zine and the Quarterly Review y and wrote the famous elegy, 
Adonais, mourning the poet's untimely death. 

Percy Bysshe Shelley to Thomas Love Peacock 

Ravenna, August, 1821 
My dear Peacock, — 

I received your last letter just as I was setting ofif 
from the Bagni on a visit to Lord Byron at this place. 
Many thanks for all your kind attention to my accursed 
affairs.^ I am happy to tell you that my income is 
satisfactorily arranged, although Horace Smith having 
received it, and being still on his slow journey through 
France, I cannot send you, as I wished to have done, the 
amount of my debt immediately, but must defer it 
till I see him or till my September quarter, which is now 
very near. I am very much obliged to you for your 
way of talking about it — but of course, if I cannot do 
you any good, I will not permit you to be a sufferer 
by me. 

I have sent you by the Gisbornes a copy of the 
'' Elegy on Keats.'^ The subject, I know, will not please 

164 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 165 

you; but the composition of the poetry and the taste 
in which it is written, I do not think bad. You and the 
enUght ened pubUc will j udge . Lord Byron is in excellent 
tone both of health and spirits. He has got rid of 
all those melancholy and degrading habits which he in- 
dulged at Venice. He has written three more cantos of 
Don Juan. I have yet only heard the fifth, and I think 
that every word of it is pregnant with immortality. 
I have not seen his late plays, except Marino Faliero, 
which is very well, but not so transcendently fine as the 
Don Juan, Lord Byron gets up at two. I get up, quite 
contrary to my usual custom, but one must sleep or 
die, like Southey^s sea-snake in Kehama, at 12. After 
breakfast we sit talking till six. From six till eight we 
gallop through the pine forests which divide Ravenna 
from the sea; we then come home and dine, and sit up 
gossiping until six in the morning. I don't suppose this 
will kill me in a week or fortnight, but I shall not try it 
longer. Lord B/s establishment consists, besides 
servants, of ten horses, eight enormous dogs, three 
monkeys, five cats, an eagle, a crow, and a falcon; and 
all these, except the horses, walk about the house, which 
every now and then resounds with their unarbitrated 
quarrels, as if they were the masters of it. 

Lord B. thinks you wrote a pamphlet signed '^John 
Buir'; he says he knew it by the style resembling 
Melincourt, of which he is a great admirer. I read it, 
and assured him that it could not possibly be yours. 
I write nothing, and probably shall write no more. It 
offends me to see my name classed among those who 



166 SELECTED LETTERS 

have no name. If I cannot be something better, I had 
rather be nothing, and the accursed cause ^ to the down- 
fall of which I dedicate what powers I may have had 
flourishes like a cedar and covers England with its 
boughs. My motive was never the insane desire of 
fame; and if I should continue an author, I feel that I 
should desire it. This cup is justly given to one only of 
an age; indeed, participation would make it worthless: 
and unfortunate they who seek it and find it not. 
My regards to Hogg, and Coulson if you see him. 

Ever most faithfully yours, 

P. B. S. 

After I have sealed my letter, I find that my enumera- 
tion of the animals in this Circean Palace^ was defective, 
and that in a material point. I have just met on the 
grand staircase five peacocks, two guinea hens, and an 
Egyptian crane. I wonder who all these animals were 
before they were changed into these shapes. 



XXI 

The following letter shows John Keats (1795-1821) as a 
happy-hearted youth, traveling through Devonshire, in Scotland, 
seeing the humorous side of travel, and regaling his friends and 
family with his laughable experiences. The famihar picture of 
Keats is that of a sensitive poet, smarting under adverse reviews, 
seeking Italy to stay the development of consumption. He died 
at the age of twenty-five and was buried in Rome. On his grave- 
stone is the inscription which he himself told his friend Severn 
to place there: '^Here lies one whose name was writ in water.'' 

1. John Keats to Benjamin Bailey 

Teignmouth, 
Friday [13 March 1818] 
My dear Bailey, 

When a poor devil is droTVTiing, it is said he comes 
thrice to the surface ere he makes his final sink. If, 
however, even at the third rise he can manage to catch 
hold of a piece of weed or rock he stands a fair chance, 
as I hope I do now, of being saved. I have sunk twice 
in correspondence, have risen twice, and have been 
too idle, or something worse, to extricate myself. I have 
sunk the third time, and just now risen again at two of 
the clock P. M., and saved myself from utter perdition 
by beginning this, all drenched as I am, and fresh from 
the water. And I would rather endure the present 
inconvenience of a wet jacket than you should keep a 
laced one in store for me. Why did I not stop at Oxford 

167 



168 SELECTED LETTERS 

in my way? How can you ask such a question? Why, 
did I not promise to do so? Did I not; in a letter to you, 
make a promise to do so? Then how can you be so 
unreasonable as to ask me why I did not? This is the 
thing — (for I have been rubbing up my invention — 
trying several sleights — I first poHshed a cold, felt it in 
my fingers, tried it on the table, but could not pocket 
it: — I tried chilblains, rheumatism, gout, tight boots — 
nothing of that sort would do, — so this is, as I was 
going to say, the thing) — I had a letter from Tom, 
saying how much better he had got, and thinking he 
had better stop. I went down to prevent his coming 
up. Will not this do? Turn it which way you like — it is 
selvaged all round. I have used it these last three 
days, to keep out the abominable Devonshire weather. 
By the by, you may say what you will of Devonshire: 
the truth is, it is a splashy, rainy, misty, snowy, foggy, 
haily, floody, muddy, slipshod county. The hills are 
very beautiful, when you get a sight of 'em — the prim- 
roses are out, but then you are in — the cliffs are of a 
fine deep colour, but then the clouds are continually 
vieing with them — the women like your London people 
in a negative sort of way — because the native men are 
the poorest creatures in England — because Government 
never have thought it worth while to send a recruiting 
party among them. When I think of Wordsworth's 
Sonnet, ''Vanguard of Liberty! ye men of Kent!'' the 
degenerated race about me are Pulvis ipecac, simplex ^ — 
a strong dose. Were I a corsair, Fd make a descent on 
the south coast of Devon ; if I did not run the chance of 



JOHN KEATS 169 

having cowardice imputed to me. I think it well for 
the honour of Britain that Julius Csesar did not first 
land in this county. A Devonshirer standing on his 
native hills is not a distinct object — he does not show 
against the light — a wolf or two would dispossess him. 
I Uke, I love England — I like its living men — give me a 
long brown plain for my money, so I may meet with 
some of Edmond Ironside's descendants. Give me a 
barren mould, so I may meet with some shadowing of 
Alfred in the shape of a Gipsy, a huntsman, or a shep- 
herd. Scenery is fine — but human nature is finer — the 
sward is richer for the tread of a real nervous English 
foot — the eagle's nest is finer, for the mountaineer has 
looked into it. Are these facts or prejudices? What- 
ever they be, for them I shall never be able to relish 
entirely any Devonshire scenery. Homer is fine, — 
Achilles is fine, Diomed is fine, Shakspeare is fine — 
Hamlet is fine, Lear is fine — but dwindled Englishmen 
are not fine. I wonder I meet with no born monsters. 
Devonshire, last night I thought the moon had 
dwindled in heaven. 

My brother Tom desires to be remembered to you. 

Your affectionate friend, 

John Keats 

2. John Keats to Fanny Keats 

Dumfries, July 2nd [1818] 
My dear Fanny, 

I intended to have written to you from Kirkcud- 
bright, the town I shall be in to-morrow — but I will 



170 SELECTED LETTERS 

write now because my knapsack has worn my coat in 
the seams, my coat has gone to the tailor^s and I have 
but one coat to my back in these parts. I must tell you 
how I went to Liverpool with George and our new 
Sister and the gentleman my fellow traveller through 
the summer and autumn. We had a tolerable journey 
to Liverpool — which I left the next morning before 
George was up for Lancaster. Then we set off from 
Lancaster on foot with our knapsacks on, and have 
walked a Uttle zigzag through the mountains and lakes 
of Cumberland to this place. We are employed in 
going up mountains, looking at strange towns, prying 
into old ruins and eating very hearty breakfasts. Here 
we are full in the midst of broad Scotch ^^How is it a' 
wi 'yourself ^^ — the girls are walking about bare footed 
and in the worst cottages the smoke finds its way out 
of the door. I shall come home full of news for you 
and for fear I should choke you by too great a 
dose at once I must make you used to it by a letter 
or two. 

We have been taken for travelHng jewellers, razor 
sellers and spectacle vendors because friend Brown 
wears a pair. The first place we stopped at with our 
knapsacks contained one Richard Bradshaw, a notorious 
tippler. He stood in the shape of a § and balanced 
himself as well as he could, saying with his nose right in 
Mr. Brown's face, ''Do — yo — u sell spect — ta — cles?'' 
Mr. Abbey says we are Don Quixotes ^ — tell him we are 
more generally taken for Pedlars. All I hope is that 
we may not be taken for excisemen in this whiskey 



JOHN KEATS 171 

country. We are generally up about 5 walking before 
breakfast and we complete our 20 miles before dinner. 
Yesterday we visited Burns^s Tomb. I had done this 
far when my coat came back fortified at all points — so 
as we lose no time we set forth again through Gall- 
oway — all very pleasant and pretty with no fatigue 
when one is used to it. We are in the midst of Meg 
Merrilies^ ^ country, of whom I suppose you have 
heard. 

We have walked through a beautiful Country to 
Kirkcudbright — at which place I will write you a song 
about myself. 

There was a naughty Boy, 
A naughty Boy was he. 
He would not stop at home. 
He could not quiet be — 

He took 

In his Knapsack 

A Book 

Full of vowels 

And a shirt 

With some towels — : 

A slight cap 

For night cap — • 

A hair brush, 

Comb ditto. 

New Stockings, 

For old ones 

Would split O! 

This Knapsack 

Tight at^s back 

He rivetted close 
And followed his Nose 



172 SELECTED LETTERS 

To the North, 
To the North, 
And followed his Nose 
To the North. 

There was a naughty Boy 

And a naughty Boy was he, 
For nothing would he do 
But scribble poetry — 

He took 

An inkstand 

In his hand 

And a pen 

Big as ten 

In the other 

And away 
In a Pother 

He ran 
To the mountains 
And fountains 

And ghostes 

And Postes 

And witches 

And ditches 

And wrote 

In his coat 

When the weather was cool 

Fear of gout. 

And without 

When the w^eather 

Was warm — 

Och the charm 

When we choose 
To follow one's Nose 
To the North, 
To the North, 



JOHN KEATS 173 

To follow one's Nose 
To the North! 

There was a naughty Boy, 

And a naughty Boy was he, 
He ran away to Scotland 
The people for to see — 

Then he found 

That the ground 

Was as hard, 

That a yard 

Was as long, 

That a song 

Was as merry, 

That a cherry 

Was as red — 

That lead 

Was as weighty, 

That fourscore 

Was as eighty, 

That a door 

Was as wooden 

As in England — 
So he stood in his shoes 

And he wondered, 
He stood in his shoes 

And he wondered. 



My dear Fanny, I am ashamed of writing you such 
stuff, nor would I if it were not for being tired after my 
day's walking, and ready to tumble into bed so fatigued 
that when I am asleep you might sew my nose to my 
great toe and trundle me round the town, like a hoop, 
without waking me. Then I get so hungry a ham goes 



174 SELECTED LETTERS 

but a very little way and fowls are like larks to me. 
A batch of bi-ead I make no more ado with than a sheet 
of parliament; and I can eat a bulFs head as easily as I 
used to do bulFs eyes. I take a whole string of pork 
sausages down as easily as a pen'orth of lady's fingers. 
Ah, dear, I must soon be contented with an acre or two 
of oaten cake, a hogshead of milk and a cloaths basket 
of eggs morning, noon and night when I get among the 
Highlanders. 

God bless you. 

Your affectionate brother 

John 

Do write me a Letter directed to Inverness^ Scotland. 



XXII 

Thomas Hood (1799-1845), best known for his two poems 
''The Song of the Shirt'' and ''The Bridge of Sighs/' became 
assistant sub-editor of the London Magazine in 1821, and was 
brought in contact with its briUiant staff of contributors. Lamb, 
DeQuincey, and HazUtt. In 1834 Hood met with heavy pecun- 
iary misfortunes, possibly because of the failure of his pubHsher. 
He received advances from his pubHshers and went abroad, 
hoping to retrieve his health and fortunes. To this period of 
residence on the continent most of his correspondence belongs. 
He writes with much gaiety and spirit for a patient worn with 
consumption. He combined the serious and comic with rare art. 

Thomas Hood to May 

17, Elm Tree Road, St. John's Wood, 

Monday, April, 1844 
My dear May, — 

I promised you a letter, and here it is. I was sure 
to remember it; for you are as hard to forget, as you are 
soft to roll down a hill with. What fun it was! only so 
prickly, I thought I had a porcupine in one pocket, 
and a hedgehog in the other. The next time, before 
we kiss the earth, we will have its face well shaved. 
Did you ever go to Greenwich Fair? I should like to 
go there with you, for I get no rolling at St. John's 
Wood. Tom and Fanny only like roll and butter, and 
as for Mrs. Hood, she is for rolling in money. 

Tell Dunnie that Tom has set his trap in the balcony 

175 



176 • SELECTED LETTERS 

and has caught a cold, and tell Jeanie that Fannie has 
set her foot m the garden, but it has not come up yet. 
Oh, how I wish it was the season when ^^ March winds 
and April showers bring forth May flowers!'' for then 
of course you would give me another pretty Uttle nose- 
gay. Besides it is frosty and foggy weather, which I 
do not like. The other night, when I came from Strat- 
ford, the cold shriveled me up so, that when I got home, 
I thought I was my own child! 

However, I hope we shall all have a merry Christmas; 
I mean to come in my most ticklesome waistcoat, and 
to laugh till I grow fat, or at least streaky. Fanny is 
to be allowed a glass of wine, Tom's mouth is to have a 
hole holiday, and Mrs. Hood is to sit up for supper! 
There will be doings! And then such good things to 
eat; but, pray, pray, pray, mind they don't boil the 
baby by a mistake for a plump pudding, instead of a 
plum one. 

Give my love to everybody, from yourself down to 
Willy, with which and a kiss, I remain, up hill and 
down dale, 

Your affectionate lover, 
Thomas Hood 



XXIII 

Jane Welsh Carlyle (1801-1866) is a unique figure in English 
literature, in that her title to a place rests almost wholly on her 
letters, which were never intended for pubhcation. She was a 
high-strung, sensitive, frail woman, with a marvellous talent for 
expressing her feehngs. Probably her hardships were no greater 
than those borne by many women, — such hardships as trouble- 
some neighbors, callers who are bores, inefficient servants, house- 
cleaning, exacting husbands with indigestion; yet she has 
described them so graphically in her letters that one feels that 
perhaps she was peculiarly afflicted. EngHsh literature is the 
richer for her misfortunes, and she is not wholly overshadowed 
by her husband. 

1. Jane Welsh Carlyle to Miss Stodart 

Craigenputtoch, 
21st November [Postmark, 1825) 
My dear Eliza, — 

Could you but see how it stands with me just at 
present, you would not be too much elated by this 
favour. For I am sitting here companionless, ''like 
owl in desert,'' with nothing pressing to do, having 
learnt my daily task of Spanish, and also finished a 
shirt — let me speak truth, a nightshirt — I was making 
for my husband, and it is come into my head as a re- 
source from ennui that I should write somebody a 
letter; and thus, dear, all you have to be proud of is, 
that my choice of an object has fallen on you, I tell 
you this out of my natural love of plain deaUng. 

You would know what I am doing in these moors? 

177 



178 SELECTED LETTERS 

Well, I am feeding poultry (at long intervals, and merely 
for formes sake), and I am galloping over the country 
on a bay horse, and baking bread, and improving my 
mind, and eating, and sleeping, and making, and mend- 
ing, and, in short, wringing whatever good I can from 
the ungrateful soil of the world. On the whole, I was 
never more contented in my life; one enjoys such free- 
dom and quietude here. Nor have we purchased this 
at the expense of other accommodations; for we have a 
good house to live in, with all the necessaries of life, 
and even some touch of the superfluities. '^Do you 
attempt to raise any corn?'' the people ask us. Bless 
their hearts! we are planning strawberry-banks, and 
shrubberies, and beds of roses, with the most perfect 
assurance that they will grow. As to the corn, it grows 
to all lengths, without ever consulting the public 
about the matter. Another question that is asked me, 
so often as I am abroad, is, how many cows I keep; 
which question, to my eternal shame as a housewife, 
I have never yet been enabled to answer, having never 
ascertained, up to this moment, whether there are 
seven cows or eleven. The fact is, I take no delight in 
cows, and have happily no concern with them. Carlyle 
and I are not playing farmers here, which were a rash 
and unnatural attempt. My brother-in-law is the 
farmer, and fights his own battle, in his own new house, 
which one of his sisters manages for him. 

In the autumn I had enough to mind without count- 
ing cows, the house being often full of visitors. There 
was Robert (my uncle) and Ann, a Mr. Graham of 



JANE WELSH CARLYLE 179 

Burnswark, Jeffrey, with wife and child and maid and 
lap-dog, George and his wife, our dear Henry Inglis, 
and several others whom you do not know. And how 
on earth did Mr. Jeffrey get himself amused at Craigen- 
puttoch? Why, in the simplest manner. He talked — 
talked from morning till night, nay, till morning again. 
I never assisted at such a talking since I came into the 
world, either in respect of quantity or quality. 

Mrs. Richardson is getting out a new edition of that 
weary book, and fitting out her daughter WilUe for India; 
neither ware, I am afraid, will find a ready market. 

John Carlyle ^ is still in Germany. We looked for 
him home, but he has found that he could neither have 
peace in his lifetime, nor sleep quiet in his grave, had 
he missed studying six months in Vienna. Little Jane 
is gone back to Scotsbrig, where she could not be well 
spared, another sister being here with Alick. So that 
Carlyle and I are quite by ourselves at present, moraliz- 
ing together, and learning Spanish together, and in 
short, living in the most confidential manner imagin- 
able. You never saw so still a house; we have just one 
servant (Grace Macdonald), and not even a cat in 
addition (for we find mouse-traps answer much better). 
By the way, this Grace is just the cleverest servant 
I ever had occasion to know, and would be a perfect 
paragon in her line were it not for certain '^ second table '' 
airs about her, which without doubt she must have 
picked up at the Manners's. 

My Mother dined here ten days ago, and stayed a 
night, her second and longest visit since we came. But 



180 SELECTED LETTERS 

she is of necessity much confined at home now, and 
also imagines the necessity to be greater than it is. 
You inquire if I will be in Edinburgh this winter. I 
think the chances are about two to one that I shall. 
We are pressingly invited to spend some time with the 
Jeffreys; and Carlyle has agreed to go, provided he 
gets three papers, promised to the Foreign RevieWy 
finished by then. Should he be belated with these, 
he would have me go without him; but that I shall 
not dretun of domg. It would be poor entertainment for 
one in Edinburgh or anj^vhere else to thmk one's hus- 
band was here in the desert alone^ his stockings getting 
all into holes, and perhaps even his tea ruiming down. 

Remember me in the kindest manner to j^our Uncle, 
and say to him that, if he will come and see us in the 
summer, the fatted calf shall be slain to make him wel- 
come, to say nothing of hunbs and poultry. 

Carlyle is away in Annandale at present. His eldest 

sister has been ill for some time, and he is gone to see 

what can be done for her. I am afraid she is in a very 

bad way. Do write. 

Ever affect ionately yours, 

J. W. Carlyle 

2. Jane Welsh Carlyle to Miss Stodart 

Cr-\igenputtoch 
5th February [Postmark, 1830] 
Dearest Eliza, — 

This has been the unluckiest new year to me! Every 
day some Job's-post or other tempts me to curse my 



JANE WELSH CARLYLE 181 

stars. It began with the death of my pig — my sweet, 
wise, Httle pig, who was the apple of my eye; he got 
a surfeit one evening, and next morning I was pigless! 
and just when my long-cherished hopes of him were 
approaching their fulfihnent, and a few more weeks 
would have plumped him out into such delicate bacon! 
So the glory of this world passeth awa}^ On the back 
of this severe family-affliction followed a disaster oc- 
casioned by a quite different cause, being the conse- 
quence, not of overfeeding, but pure starvation: a 
stranger cat under the pangs of famine rushed wildly 
into our larder one day, making straight in the direction 
of a beefsteak; and, before you could bless yourself, 
snack went the steak, and smash went a corner-dish, 
which you know was as bad as if the whole four corner- 
dishes had been broken, or at least a pair of them. And, 
alas! this was only a beginning. This smash, it seemed, 
was but a signal for the breakage of all the crockery, 
glass, and china about the house. For now Nancy 
became as it were suddenly possessed with a demon of 
destruction which shivered ever3^thing she laid hands 
on; nay, the supper-tra^", with all its complement of 
bowls, plates, etc., etc., she ^^soopit ower wi' her tails!" ^ 
One fell soop! But already I must have filled your 
eyes with tears, and will not tax your s^Tiipathy with 
a detail of all my grievances; indeed, one sheet would 
not hold them. 

And now, contrary to my usual practice, ^'I must 
plant a remark" or two on the weather. It is well we 
have meat and fire ^^ within ourselves" (as ]\Irs. Rough- 



182 SELECTED LETTERS 

head used to say), otherwise we should Hve in hourly 
apprehension of being snowed up, and consequently 
starved to death without even the mournful alternative 
of '^eating our own children/' Oh for a sight of the 
green fields again, or even the black peatmoss — any- 
thing rather than this wide waste of blinding snow! 
The only time when I can endure to look out (going out 
is not to be dreamt of) is by moonlight, when the en- 
closure before the house is literally filled with hares, 
and then the scene is really very picturesque, the 
little dark forms skipping and bounding over the white 
ground so witch-like! A still more novel spectacle 
exhibited itself the other day at broad noon. Seven 
blackcocks, ^^Sisfine (or perhaps finer) as ever stepped 
the streets of Greenock, '^ came running down the wood 
to within a few yards of the door. Such are the pleasing 
varieties of life here. You will allow that they are 
extremely innocent. 

Carlyle inquired if I had sent his love the last time, 
and charges me to remember it now. We speak of 
your Uncle and you over our evening fire both often 
and kindly. My kindest regards are with you both. 
My Grandfather continues much the same. God bless 
you! 

Always affectionately yours 
Jane W. Carlyle 

A good new year, and many of them. — T.C. 



JANE WELSH CARLYLE 183 

3. Jane Welsh Carlyle to Mrs. Welsh 

Dearest Mother, — 

Your last letter is particularly unsatisfactory, scat- 
tery ^Ho a degree!'^ as indeed all your Letters from 
Liverpool have been; but now that you have a ^^ bit 
haddin^ o' your ain'^ ^ again, I really do pray you to be 
at leisure, for '' depend upon it the slower thou gangs 
the sooner thou^lt get to thy journey's end/' I should 
have liked to know your mode of travelling; and 
whether my Uncle was '^not so well'' in the eyes or in 
his general health; and a variety of other things which 
are left to '^my own conjecturJ^ This is the fourth 
Letter you will please to remember (including the long 
one to my uncle) which I have written in Lecture-time, 
a time of hurry and flurry enough to drive a nervous 
human being like myself into daily hysterics, — if it 
were not that my will is stronger than my nerves. All 
this seems to me to deserve an ample and leisurely 
return. 

To-morrow is last Lecture-day, thank Heaven. Un- 
less he can get hardened in this trade, he certainly ought 
to discontinue it; for no gain or eclat that it can yield, 
is compensation enough for the martyrdom it is to 
himself, and thro' him to me, — to appearance he has 
got thro' the thing this year much more smoothly and 
quite as briUiantly as last year; but in defect of the 
usual measure of agitation beforehand^ he has taken 
to the new and curious crotchet of being ready to hang 
himself after , in the idea that he has made '^a horrible 



184 SELECTED LETTERS 

pluister [mess] of it.'' No demonstrations of the highest 
satisfaction on the part of fcis audience can convince 
him to the contrary; and he remains, under applause 
that would turn the head of most Lecturers, haunted 
by the pale ghost of last day's Lecture '^shaking its 
gory locks at him" till next day's arrives to take its 
place and torment him in its turn. — ^^ Very absurd." 

We are suffering sadly from cold; by and by it will 
be hot enough. And then what is to follow is not yet 
very clearly apparent. Sometimes Carlyle talks of 
going to make a lecturing campaign in America this 
very Autumn; sometimes of taking a house on the 
seashore; but we are likely, I think, to end in a campaign 
against Templand,^ which I should not wonder if in 
your opinion were the most judicious and natural- 
looking thing we could do. — God bless you, my own 
dear Mother: but you must get yourself right paper, 
ink and pens, and write world-looking Letters. 

Your affectionate 
Jane 



XXIV 

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) was a man of the finest 
sensibilities, of which the following letters give ample proof. 
Unfortunately, like many men of letters, he had financial diffi- 
culties, especially after losing his position in the custom house at 
Salem. The money loaned by his friends was repaid within 
three years, and the letter accompanying it is evidence of his 
nobihty of spirit. Fortunately he did not have to resort to the 
''drudgery of literature" for support. He stands foremost in 
American hterature as a novelist, and succeeded in imparting 
to his writings the finest qualities of New England life and 
character. 

1. Nathaniel Hawthorne to George Stillman Hillard 

Concord, March 24, 1844 

I thank you for your kind and warm congratulations 
on the advent of our little Una — a name which I wish 
you were entirely pleased with; as I think you will be 
bye and bye. Perhaps the first impression may not 
be altogether agreeable; for the name has never before 
been warmed with human life, and therefore may not 
seem appropriate to real flesh and blood. But for us, 
our child has already given it a natural warmth; and 
when she has worn it through her lifetime, and perhaps 
transmitted it to descendants of her own, the beautiful 
name will have become naturalized on earth; — whereby 
we shall have done a good deed in bringing it out of the 
realm of Faery. I do not agree with you that poetry 
ought not to be brought into common life. If flowers of 

185 



186 SELECTED LETTERS 

Eden can be made to grow among my cabbages and 
squashes, it will please me so much the better; those 
excellent vegetables will be just as good to eat, and the 
flowers no less delightful to see and smell. After all, I 
like the name, not so much from any association with 
Spencer^s heroine,^ as for its simple self — it is as simple 
as a name can be — as simple as a breath — it is merely 
inhaling a breath into one's heart, and emitting it 
again, and the name is spoken. 

As for myself, who have been a trifler preposterously 
long, I find it necessary to come out of my cloud-region, 
and allow myself to be woven into the sombre texture 
of humanity. There is no escaping it any longer. I 
have business on earth now, and must look about me 
for the means of doing it. 

It will never do for me to continue merely a writer 
of stories for the magazines — the most unprofitable 
business in the world; and moreover, even if there were 
ever so great a demand for my productions, I could not 
spend more than a third of my time in this sort of com- 
position. It requires a continual freshness of mind; 
else a deterioration in the article will quickly be per- 
ceptible. If I am to support myself by literature, it 
must be by what is called drudgery, but which is incom- 
parably less irksome, as a business, than imaginative 
writing — by translation, concocting of school-books, 
newspaper scribbhng, &c. If we have a democratic 
administration next year, I shall again favour Uncle 
Sam with my services, though, I hope, in some less 
disagreeable shape than formerly.^ 



'NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 187 

I sent an article to Graham some months ago, and he 
wrote to me, accepting it with a '^ great deal of pleas- 
ure/^ &c. — but it does not yet appear. Unless he pub- 
lishes it next month, I shall reclaim it — having occasion 
for it elsewhere. God keep me from ever being really a 
writer for bread! If I alone was concerned, I had 
rather starve; but in that case poor little Una would 
have to take refuge in the alms-house — which, here in 
Concord, is a most gloomy old mansion. Her ^^ angel 
face'^ would hardly make a sunshine there. You must 
come and see little Una and the rest of us, as soon as the 
railroad is opened. People of experience in babies say 
she is going to be very pretty — which I devoutly believe, 
though the tokens are as yet hidden from my eyes. At 
all events, she is a remarkably strong and healthy 
child, free from all troubles and torments such as 
Nature generally provides for poor little babies. She 
seldom cries except for hunger — her alimentiveness 
being enormously developed. She has already smiled 
once, on the sixteenth morning of her existence. I hope 
to see you in Boston, early in next month. Give our 
regards to Mrs. Hillard. We long to show her our 
baby. It is a pity that any mortal should go out of life, 
without experiencing what gives life its reality; and, 
next to a child on earth, it is good to have a child in 
Heaven. 

Your friend, 

Nathaniel Hawthorne 



188 SELECTED LETTERS 

2. Nathaniel Hawthorne to George Stillman Hillard 

Salem, Jan. 20, 1850 

I read your letter in the vestibule of the Post Office; 
and it drew — what my troubles never have — the 
water to my eyes; so that I was glad of the sharply 
cold west wind that blew into them as I came home- 
ward, and gave them an excuse for being red and 
bleared. 

There was much that was very sweet — and something 
too that was very bitter — mingled with that same 
moisture. It is sweet to be remembered and cared for 
by one's friends — some of whom know me for what 
I am, while others, perhaps, know me only through a 
generous faith — sweet to think that they deem me 
worth upholding in my poor work through life. And 
it is bitter, nevertheless, to need their support. It is 
something else besides pride that teaches me that ill- 
success in life is really and justly a matter of shame. 
I am ashamed of it, and I ought to be. The fault of a 
failure is attributable — in a great degree at least — to 
the man who fails. I should apply this truth in judging 
of other men; and it behooves me not to shun its 
point or edge in taking it home to my own heart. No- 
body has a right to live in the world, unless he be 
strong and able, and applies his abihty to good pur- 
pose. 

The money, dear Hillard, will smooth my path for a 
long time to come. The only way in which a man can 
retain his self-respect, while availing himself of the 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 189 

generosity of his friends, is by making it an incitement 
to his utmost exertions, so that he may not need their 
help again. I shall look upon it so — nor will shun any 
drudgery that my hand shall find to do, if thereby I 
may win bread. 



XXV 

Robert Edward Lee (1807-1870) was distinguished for his 
services in the Mexican and Civil wars. In 1865 he was offered 
the presidency of Washington College, Lexington, Virginia, 
(now Washington and Lee College) an office he held until his 
death. In the midst of arduous duties as soldier and college 
president, he found time to write friendly, sympathetic letters 
to his family and friends. His letters from Mexico to his children 
are especially worthy of interest. He wrote his son, who had 
acquired a plantation of his own, letters full of advice and in- 
struction that anticipated the present scientific methods of farm- 
ing. He refused to lend his name to an insurance company, 
when he felt that he could not make adequate returns for the 
salary offered. 

1. Robert E. Lee to the Trustees of Washington College 

Powhatan County, August 24, 1865 
Gentlemen : 

I have delayed for some days replying to your letter 
of the 5th inst., informing me of my election by the 
board of trustees to the presidency of Washington 
College, from a desire to give the subject due considera- 
tion. Fully impressed with the responsibilities of the 
office, I have feared that T should be unable to dis- 
charge its duties to the satisfaction of the trustees or 
to the benefit of the country. The proper education 
of youth requires not only great abilit}^, but I fear more 
strength than I now possess, for I do not feel able to 
undergo the labour of conducting classes in regular 

190 



ROBERT E. LEE 191 

courses of instruction. I could not, therefore, under- 
take more than the general administration and supervi- 
sion of the institution. There is another subject which 
has caused me serious reflection, and is, I think, worthy 
of the consideration of the board. Being excluded from 
the terms of amnesty in the proclamation of the Pres- 
ident of the United States, of the 29th of May last, and 
an object of censure to a portion of the country, I have 
thought it probable that my occupation of the position 
of president might draw upon the college a feeling of 
hostility; and I should, therefore, cause injury to an 
institution which it would be my highest desire to 
advance. I think it the duty of every citizen, in the 
present condition of the country, to do all in his power 
to aid in the restoration of peace and harmony, and in no 
way to oppose the policy of the State or general govern- 
ment directed to that object. It is particularly incum- 
bent on those charged with the instruction of the young 
to set them an example of submission to authority, 
and I could not consent to be the cause of animadver- 
sion upon the college. Should you, however, take a 
different view, and think that my services in the posi- 
tion tendered to me by the board will be advantageous 
to the college and country, I will yield to your judg- 
ment and accept it; otherwise, I must most respectfully 
decline the office. Begging you to express to the 
trustees of the college my heartfelt gratitude for the 
honour conferred upon me, and requesting you to 
accept my cordial thanks for the kind manner in 
which you have communicated their decision, I am, 



192 SELECTED LETTERS 

gentlemen, with great respect, your most obedient 
servant, 

R. E. Lee 

2. Robert E. Lee to Peabody Russell * 

Lexington, Va., November 10, 1869 

My dear Mr. Russell: 

The announcement of the death of your uncle, Mr. 
George Peabody, has been received with the deepest 
regret wherever his name and benevolence are known; 
and nowhere have his generous deeds, restricted to no 
country, section, or sect, eHcited more heart-felt ad- 
miration than at the South. 

He stands alone in history for the benevolent use and 
judicious distribution of his great wealth, and his 
memory has become justly entwined in the affections 
of millions of his fellow-citizens in both hemispheres. 

I beg in my own behalf, and in behalf of the trustees 
and faculty of Washington College, Virginia, which 
has not been forgotten by him in his acts of generosity, 
to tender our unfeigned sorrow at his death. 

With great respect, your obedient servant, 

R. E. Lee 

* Reprinted from Personal Reminiscences, Anecdotes, and Letters 
of Gen. Robert E, Lee by permission of D. Appleton and Company. 



ROBERT E. LEE 193 

3. Robert E. Lee to General J. B, Gordon 
Lexington, Virginia, December 14, 1869 

General J. B. Gordon, President, 

Southern Life Insurance Company, 
Atlanta, Georgia 

My dear General: 

I have received your letter of the 3d inst., and am 
duly sensible of the kind feelings which prompted your 
proposal. It would be a great pleasure to me to be 
associated with you, Hampton,^ B. H. Hill, and the 
other good men whose names I see on your Kst of direc- 
tors, but I feel that I ought not to abandon the position 
I hold at Washington College at this time, or as long as 
I can be of service to it. Thanking you for your kind 
consideration, for which I know I am alone indebted 
for your proposition to become president of the South- 
em Life Insurance Company, and with kindest regards 
to Mrs. Gordon and my best wishes for yourself, I am, 

Very truly yours, 
R. E. Lee 



XXVI 

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) was the sixteenth President 
of the United States. His early life was one of toil, hardship, and 
privation, yet his thrift and ambition and capacity for work 
enabled him to rise steadily to positions of greater and greater 
honor and confidence. John D. Johnston, to whom the following 
letter is written, was the son of Lincoln's step-mother, Mrs. 
Sarah Bush Johnston. He was a man devoid of all the qualities 
that insured the success of Lincoln's life. The following letter 
is characteristic of Lincoln, in its candor, kindliness, and shrewd 
common sense. 

Abraham Lincoln to John D. Johnston 

January 2, 1851 
Dear Johnston: 

Your request for eighty dollars I do not think it best 
to comply with now. At the various times when I have 
helped you a little you have said to me, ^^We can get 
along very well now''; but in a very short time I find 
you in the same difficulty again. Now, this can only 
happen by some defect in your conduct. What that 
defect is, I think I know. You are not lazy, and still 
you are an idler. I doubt whether, since I saw you, 
you have done a good whole day's work in any one day. 
You do not very much dislike to work, and still you do 
not work much, merely because it does not seem to you 
that you could get much for it. This habit of uselessly 
wasting time is the whole difficulty; it is vastly impor- 

194 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 195 

tant to you, and still more so to your children, that you 
should break the habit. It is more important to them, 
because they have longer to live, and can keep out of 
an idle habit before they are in it, easier than they 
can get out after they are in. 

You are now in need of some money; and what I 
propose is, that you shall go to work, ^Hooth and nail,'' 
for somebody who will give you money for it. Let 
father and your boys take charge of your things at 
home, prepare for a crop, and make a crop, and you 
go to work for the best money wages, or in discharge 
of any debt you owe, that you can get; and, to secure 
you a fair reward for your labour, I now promise you, 
that for every dollar you will, between this and the 
first of May, get for your own labour, either in money 
or as your own indebtedness, I will then give you one 
other dollar. By this, if you hire yourself at ten dollars 
a month, from me you will get ten more, making twenty 
dollars a month for your work. In this I do not mean 
that you shall go off to St. Louis, or the lead mines, 
or the gold mines in California, but I mean for you to 
go at it for the best wages you can get close to home in 
Coles County. 

Now, if you will do this, you will be soon out of debt, 
and, what is better, you will have a habit that will 
keep you from getting in debt again. But, if I should 
now clear you out of debt, next year you would be 
just as deep in as ever. You say you would almost 
give your place in heaven for seventy or eighty dollars. 
Then you value your place in heaven very cheap, for 



196 SELECTED LETTERS 

I am sure you can, with the offer I make, get the seventy 
or eighty dollars for four or five months' work. You 
say if I will furnish you the money you will deed me the 
land, and if you don^t pay the money back you will 
deliver possession. Nonsense! If you can't live now 
with the land, how will you then live without it? You 
have always been very kind to me, and I do not mean 
to be unkind to you. On the contrary, if you will but 
follow my advice, you will find it worth more than 
eighty times eighty dollars to you. 

Affectionately your brother, 

A. Lincoln 



XXVII 

Edward Fitzgerald (1809-1883), known chiefly as the trans- 
lator of The Ruhaiyat of Omar Khayyam, lived a quiet, serene 
life in Suffolk. Flowers, music, literature, his yacht, and his 
friends were the chief objects of his thought and interest. He 
married Lucy, the daughter of Bernard Barton, the Quaker poet. 
When Mr. W. Aldis Wright, his friend and literary executor, 
published his letters, it was discovered that this unobtrusive 
author was one of the greatest letter- writers. He put ^'fine 
feeling in fine English.^' Witty, sympathetic, kindly, whimsical, 
he Hved in the country, removed from the stir of the world, but 
bound his friends to him with ''hoops of steel. ^' Chief among 
them were Frederic Tennyson, the brother of Alfred, and Thack- 
eray. Some quotations from his letters reveal his true spirit. 
*'The dirt, both of earth and atmosphere, in London, is a real 
bore.'^ '' I am an idle fellow, of a very ladylike turn of sentiment; 
and my friendships are more like loves, I think.'' ''I really do 
like to sit in this doleful place [Boulge] with a good fire, a cat and 
dog on the rug, and an old woman in the kitchen. This is all my 
live stock." Letters of his in this happy vein fill two large vol- 
umes. 

1. Edward Fitzgerald to Bernard Barton 

19 Charlotte St. 

April 11/44 
Dear Barton: 

I am still indignant at this nasty place London. 
Thackeray, whom I came up to see, went off to Brighton 
the night after I arrived, and has not re-appeared; but 
I must wait some time longer for him. Oh rus, quando 

197 



198 SELECTED LETTERS 

te aspidam? ^ Construe that, ]Mr. Barton. I am going 
to send down my pictures to Boulge, if I can secure 
them: they are not quite secure at present. If they 
vanish, I snap my fingers at them, iVIagi and all — there 
is a world (alas!) elsewhere beyond pictures — Oh, oh, 
oh, oh — 

I smoked a pipe with Carlyle yesterday. We as- 
cended from his dining room carrj^ing pipes and tobacco 
up through two stories of his house, and got into a little 
dressing room near the roof: there we sat down: the 
window^ was open and looked out on nursery gardens, 
their almond trees in blossom, and beyond, bare walls 
of houses, and over these, roofs and chimneys, and 
here and there a steeple, and whole London cro^Tied 
with darkness gathering behind like the illimitable 
resources of a dream. I tried to persuade him to leave 
the accursed den, and he wished, — but — but — perhaps 
he didnH wish on the whole. 

When I get back to Boulge I shall recover my quietude 
which is now all in a ripple. But it is a shame to talk 
of such things. 

A cloud comes over Charlotte Street and seems as 
if it were sailing softly on the April wind to fall in a 
blessed shower upon the lilac buds and thirsty anemones 
somewhere in Essex; or, who knows? perhaps at Boulge. 
Out will run Mrs. Faiers, and with red arms and face 
of woe haul in the struggling windows of the cottage, 
and make all tight. Beauty Bob will cast a bird's 
eye out at the shower, and bless the useful wet. Mr. 
Loder will observe to the farmer for whom he is doing 



EDWARD FITZGERALD 199 

up a dozen of Queen's Heads, that it will be of great 
use: and the farmer will agree that his young barleys 
wanted it much. The German Ocean will dimple 
with innumerable pin points, and porpoises rolling 
near the surface sneeze with unusual pellets of fresh 
water — 

Can such things be, 

And overcome us like a summer cloud, 

Without our special wonder? 

Oh this wonderful world. 

Farewell. 

2. Edward Fitzgerald to Frederic Tennyson 

BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE, Oct. 10/44 

My dear Frederic, 

You will think I have wholly cut you. But I wrote 
half a letter to you three months ago; and mislaid it; 
spent some time in looking for it, always hoping; and 
then some more time despairing; and we all know how 
time goes when we have got a thing to do which we 
are rather lazy about doing. As for instance, getting 
up in the morning. Not that writing a letter to you 
is so bad as getting up, but it is not easy for mortal 
man who has heard, seen, done, and thought, nothing 
since he last wrote, to fill one of these big foreign sheets 
full as a foreign letter ought to be. I am now returned 
to my dull home here after my usual pottering about 
in the midland counties of England. A little Bedford- 
shire — a little Northamptonshire — a little more fold- 



200 SELECTED LETTERS 

ing of the hands — the same faces — the same fields — the 
same thoughts occurrmg at the same turns of road — 
this is all I have to tell you of; nothing at all added — ■ 
but the summer gone. My garden is covered with yel- 
low and brown leaves; and a man is digging up the 
garden beds before my window, and will plant some 
roots and bulbs for next year. My parsons come and 
smoke with me, etc. ^^The round of life from hour to 
hour'' — alluding doubtless to a mill-horse. Alfred is 
reported to be still at Park House, where he has been 
sojourning for two months, I think; but he never writes 
me a word. Hydropathy has done its worst; he writes 
the names of his friends in water. 

I spent two days in London with old Morton about 
five weeks ago ; and pleasant days they were. The rogue 
bewitches me with his wit and honest speech. He also 
staid some while at Park House, while Alfred was 
there, and managed of course to frighten the party 
occasionally with some of his sallies. He often writes 
to me; and very good his letters are, all of them. 

When do you mean to write me another? Morton 
told me in his last that he had heard from Brotherton 
you were gone, or going to Naples. I dare say this 
sheet of mine will never get to your hands. But if it 
does, let me hear from you. Is Italy becoming stale 
to you? Are you going to Cairo for fresh sensations? 
Thackeray went off in a steamboat about the time the 
French were before Mogadore; ^ he was to see those 
coasts and to visit Jerusalem! Titmarsh ^ at Jerusalem 
will certainly be an era in Christianity. But I suppose 



^. EDWARD FITZGERALD 201 

he will soon be back now. Spedding ^ is yet in his 
highlands, I beheve, considering Grouse and Bacon. 

I expect to run up to London some time during the 
winter just to tell over old friends' faces and get a sup 
of music and painting. I have bought very few more 
pictures lately; and heard no music but Mendelssohn's 
M. Night's Dream. The overture, which was pub- 
lished long ago, is the best part; but there is a very 
noble triumphal march also. 

Now I feel just in the same fix as I did in that sheet 
of paper whose fate is uncertain. But if I don't put in a 
word more, yet this shall go, I am determined. Only 
consider how it is a matter of necessity that I should 
have nothing to say. If you could see this place of 
Boulge! You who sit and survey marble palaces rising 
out of cypress and olive. There is a dreadful vulgar 
ballad, composed by Mr. Balfe, and sung with the 
most unbounded applause by Miss Rainforth, 

I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls, 

which is sung and organed at every corner in London. 
I think you may imagine what kind of flowing % time 
of the last degree of imbecility it is. The words are 
written by Mr. Bunn. Arcades amho} 

I say we shall see you over in England before long: for 
I rather think you want an Englishman to quarrel with 
sometimes. I mean quarrel in the sense of a good 
strenuous difference of opinion, supported on either side 
by occasional outbursts of spleen. Come and let us try. 
You used to irritate my vegetable blood sometimes. 



XXVIII 

When William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863) was in the 
United States in 1852, he became acquainted with the Baxter 
family of New York. The acquaintance ripened into a cordial 
friendship that lasted until his death. The letters to this family 
have been collected in a volume entitled Thackeray^ s Letters to an 
American Family, from which the following selections are made. 
Thackeray was sincere, unaffected, and simple in his tastes, 
hating sham and pretence of all kinds. His letters to Dr. and 
Mrs. Brookfield reveal those qualities that endeared him, the man 
of the world, to that delightful recluse, Edward Fitzgerald. 

William Makepeace Thackeray to Lucy D. Baxter 

Washington, 
Saturday, Feb. 19, 1853 
My dear little kind Lucy, 

I began to write you a letter in the railroad yesterday, 
but it bumped with more than ordinary violence, and 
I was forced to give up the endeavour. I did not know 
how ill Lucy was at that time, only remembered that 
I owed her a letter for that pretty one you wrote me at 
Philadelphia, when Sarah was sick and you acted as 
her Secretary. Is there going to be always Somebody 
sick at the brown house? If I were to come there now, 
I wonder should I be allowed to come and see you in 
your night-cap — I wonder even do you wear a night- 
cap? I should step up, take your little hand, which I 
daresay is lying outside the coverlet, give it a little 

202 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 203 

shake; and then sit down and talk all sorts of stuff and 
nonsense to you for half an hour; but very kind and 
gentle, not so as to make you laugh too much or your 
little back ache any more. Did I not tell you to leave 
off that beecely jimnayshum? I am always giving fine 
advice to girls in brown houses, and they always keep 
on never minding. It is not difficult to write lying in 
bed — this is written not in bed, but on a sofa. If you 
write the upright hand it^s quite easy; slantingdicular 
is not so pleasant, though. I have just come back from 
Baltimore and find your mother's and sister's melan- 
choly letters. I thought to myself, perhaps I might see 
them on this very sofa and pictured to myself their 2 
kind faces. Mr. Crampton was going to ask them to 
dinner, I had made arrangements to get Sarah nice 
partners at the ball — Why did dear little Lucy tumble 
down at the Gymnasium? Many a pretty plan in life 
tumbles down so, Miss Lucy, and falls on its back. But 
the good of being ill is to find how kind one's friends 
are; of being at a pinch (I do not know whether I may 
use the expression — whether ^^ pinch" is an indelicate 
word in this country; it is used by our old writers to 
signify poverty, narrow circumstances, res angusta) — 
the good of being poor, I say, is to find friends to help 
you. I have been both ill and poor, and found, thank 
God! such consolation in those evils; and I daresay at 
this moment, now you are laid up, you are the person 
of the most importance in the whole house — Sarah is 
sliding about the room with cordials in her hands and 
eyes; Libby is sitting quite disconsolate by the bed 



204 SELECTED LETTERS 

(poor Libby! when one little bird fell off the perch, I 
wonder the other did not go up and fall off, too!); the 
expression of s>Tiipathy in Ben's eyes is perfectly heart- 
rending; even George is quiet; and your Father, Mother, 
and Uncle (all 3 so notorious for their violence of tem- 
per and language) have actually forgotten to scold. 
^' Ach, du lieber Himmelj^ says Herr Strumpf — isn't his 
name Herr Strumpf? — the German master, ^^die schone 
Frdulein ist krank!^^ ^ and bursts into tears on the 
Pianofortyfer's shoulder when he hears the news 
(through his sobs) from black John. 

But even if Miss Lucy had not had her fall, I daresay 
there would have been no party. Here is a great snow- 
storm falling, though yesterday w^as as bland and bright 
as May (English May, I mean) and how could we have 
lionized Baltimore, and gone to IVIount Vernon, and 
taken our diversion in the snow? There would have 
been nothing for it but to stay in this little closet of a 
room, where there is scarce room for 6 people, and where 
it is not near so comfortable as the brown house. Dear 
old b. h., shall I see it again soon? I shall not go farther 
than Charleston, and Savannah probably, and then I 
hope I shall get another look at you all again before I 
commence farther wanderings — O, stop! I didn't tell 
you why I was going to write you — well, I went on 
Thursday to dine with Governor and Mrs. Fish, a 
dinner in honour of me — and before I went I arrayed 
myself in a certain white garment of which the collar- 
button-holes had been altered, and I thought of the 
kind, friendly Uttle hand that had done that deed for 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 205 

me; and when the Fisheses told me how they Hved in 
the Second Avenue (I had forgotten all about ^em) — 
their house and the house opposite came back to my 
mind, and I liked them 50 times better for living near 
some friends of mine. She is a nice woman, Madam 
Fish, besides; and didn't I abuse you all to her? 

Good bye, dear little Lucy — I wish the paper wasn't 
full. But I have been sitting half an hour by the poor 
young lady's sofa, and talking stuff and nonsense, 
haven't I? And now I get up, and shake your hand 
with a God bless you! and walk down stairs, and please 
to give everybody my kindest regards, and remember 
that I am truly your friend, 

W. M. T. 



XXIX 

No man had a larger circle of warm, personal friends than did 
Charles Dickens (1812-1867), if one judges from the extent, 
variety, and nature of his correspondence. He always contrived 
to find time to write letters to his family and friends, even when 
occupied with the most exacting work. When exhausted by the 
strain of lectures and readings, Dickens wrote some of his most 
unique and readable letters. To his family, his sister-in-law, 
Miss Georgina Hogarth, and to Douglas Jerrold of the staff of 
Punch, to Macready, the actor, to Stanfield, the artist, to Landor, 
Wilkie Collins, and a score of others, he wrote generously and 
spontaneously out of an unselfish heart. His letters, in the later 
years of his life, are full of the pleasure that his house at Gad's 
Hill afforded him, — ''Gad's Hill, near Rochester, in Kent — • 
Shakespeare's Gad's Hill, where Falstaff engaged in the robbery," 
as Dickens wrote to one of his friends. 

1. Charles Dickens to Master Hastings Hughes 

Doughty Street, London, 

Twelfth December, 1838 
Respected Sir, — 

I have given Squeers ^ one cut on the neck and two 
on the head, at which he appeared much surprised and 
began to cry which, being a cowardly thing, is just what 
I should have expected from him — wouldn't you? 

I have carefully done what you told me in your letter 
about the lamb and two ^^ sheeps^' for the little boys. 
They have also had some good ale and porter, and some 
wine. I am sorry you didn't say what wine you would 

206 



CHARLES DICKENS 207 

like them to have. I gave them some sherry which 
they liked very much, except one boy, who was a little 
sick and choked a good deal. He was rather greedy, and 
that^s the truth, and I believe it went the wrong way, 
which I say served him right, and I hope you will say so 
too. 

Nicholas had his roast lamb, as you said he was to, 
but he could not eat it all, and says if you do not mind 
his doing so he should like to have the rest hashed to- 
morrow with some greens, which he is very fond of, and 
so am I. He said he did not like to have his porter hot, 
for he thought it spoilt the flavour, so I let him have it 
cold. You should have seen him drink it. I thought 
he never would have left off. I also gave him three 
pounds of money, all in six-pences, to make it seem 
more, and he said directly that he should give more 
than half to his mamma and sister, and divide the rest 
with poor Smike. And I say he is a good fellow for 
saying so; and if anybody says he isn't I am ready to 
fight him whenever they like — there. 

Fanny Squeers shall be attended to, depend upon it. 
Your drawing of her is very like, except that I don't 
think the hair is quite curly enough. The nose is 
particularly like her, and so are the legs. She is a 
nasty disagreeable thing, and I know it will make her 
very cross when she sees it; and what I say is that I 
hope it may. You will say the same I know — at least 
I think you will. 

I meant to have written you a long letter, but I can- 
not write very fast when I like the person I am writing 



208 SELECTED LETTERS 

to, because that makes me think about them, and I Hke 
you, and so I tell you. Besides, it is just eight o'clock, 
at night, and I always go to bed at eight o'clock, except 
when it is my birthday, and then I sit up to supper. So 
I will not say anything more besides this — and that 
is my love to you and Neptune; and if you will drink 
my health every Christmas Day I will drink yours — 
come. — I am. Respected Sir, 

Your affectionate Friend 

P. S. — I don't write my name very plain, but you 
know what it is you know, so never mind. 

2. Charles Dickens to Henry Austin 

Niagara Falls (English Side), 

Sunday, First May, 1842 
My dear Henry, — 

We have had a blessed interval of quiet in this 
beautiful place, of which, as you may suppose, we stood 
greatly in need, not only by reason of our hard trav- 
elling for a long time, but on account of the incessant 
persecutions of the people, by land and water, on stage- 
coach, railway car, and steamer, which exceeds any- 
thing you can picture to yourself by the utmost stretch 
of your imagination. So far we have had this hotel 
nearly to ourselves. It is a large square house, standing 
on a bold height, with overhanging eaves like a Swiss 
cottage, and a wide handsome gallery outside every 
story. These colonnades make it look so very light, 



CHARLES DICKENS 209 

that it has exactly the appearance of a house built with 
a pack of cards; and I live in bodily terror lest any man 
should venture to step out of a little observatory on the 
roof, and crush the whole structure with one stamp of 
his foot. 

Our sitting-room (which is large and low like a 
nursery) is on the second floor, and is so close to the 
Falls that the windows are always wet and dim with 
spray. Two bedrooms open out of it — one our own; one 
Anne's. The secretary slumbers near at hand, but 
without these sacred precincts. From the three cham- 
bers, or any part of them, you can see the Falls rolling 
and tumbling, and roaring and leaping, all day long, 
with bright rainbows making fiery arches down a 
hundred feet below us. When the sun is on them, they 
shine and glow like molten gold. When the day is 
gloomy, the water falls like snow, or sometimes it 
seems to crumble away like the face of a great chalk 
cliff, or sometimes again to fall along the front of the 
rock like white smoke. But it all seems gay or gloomy, 
dark or light, by sun or moon. From the bottom of 
both Falls, there is always rising up a solemn ghostly 
cloud, which hides the boiling cauldron from human 
sight, and makes it in its mystery a hundred times more 
grand than if you could see all the secrets that lie hid- 
den in its tremendous depth. One Fall is as close to us 
as York Gate is to No. 1 Devonshire Terrace. The 
other (the great Horse-Shoe Fall) may be, perhaps, 
about half as far off as 'Greedy 's.-^ One circimastance 
in connection with them is, in all the accounts, greatly 



210 SELECTED LETTERS 

exaggerated — I mean the noise. Last night was per- 
fectly still. Kate and I could just hear them, at the 
quiet time of sunset, a mile off. Whereas, beheving the 
statements I had heard I began putting my ear to the 
ground, like a savage or a bandit in a ballet, thirty 
miles off, when we were coming here from Buffalo. 

I was delighted to receive your famous letter, and 
to read your account of our darlings, whom we long 
to see with an intensity it is impossible to shadow 
forth, ever so faintly. I do believe, though I say it as 
shouldn^t, that they are good 'uns — both to look at and 
to go. I roared out this morning, as soon as I was 
awake, ^^ Next month,'' which we have been longing to 
be able to say ever since we have been here. I really 
do not know how we shall ever knock at the door, when 
that slowest of all impossibly slow hackney-coaches 
shall pull up — at home. 

The places we have lodged in, the roads we have gone 
over, the company we have been among, the tobacco- 
spittle we have wallowed in, the strange customs we 
have complied with, the packing-cases in which we 
have travelled, the woods, swamps, prairies, lakes, and 
mountains we have crossed, are all subjects for legends 
and tales at home; quires, reams, wouldn't hold them. 
I don't think Anne has so much as seen an American 
tree. She never looks at a prospect by any chance, or 
displays the smallest emotion at any sight whatever. 
She objects to Niagara that ^^ it's nothing but water,'' 
and considers that ^^ there is too much of that." 

We purpose leaving this on Wednesday morning. 



CHARLES DICKENS . 211 

Give my love to Letitia and to mother, and always 
believe me, my dear Henry, 

Affectionately yours, 
Charles Dickens 

, 3. Charles Dickens to Mrs, Dickens 
OUT OF THE COMMON-PLEASE 
Dickens against the World 

Charles Dickens, of No. 1 Devonshire Terrace, 
York Gate, Regent's Park, in the county of Middlesex, 
gentleman, the successful plaintiff in the above cause, 
maketh oath and saith: That on the day and date 
hereof, to wit at seven o'clock in the evening, he, this 
deponent, took the chair at a large assembly of the 
Mechanics' Institution at Liverpool, and that having 
been received with tremendous and enthusiastic 
plaudits, he, this deponent, did immediately dash into 
a vigorous, brilhant, humorous, pathetic, eloquent, 
fervid, and impassioned speech. That the said speech 
was enlivened by thirteen hundred persons, with. 
frequent, vehement, uproarious, and deafening cheers, 
and to the best of this deponent's knowledge and 
belief, he, this deponent, did speak up like a man, and 
did, to the best of his knowledge and belief, considera- 
bly distinguish himself. That after the proceedings of 
the opening were over, and a vote of thanks was pro- 
posed to this deponent, he, this deponent, did again dis- 
tinguish himself, and that the cheering at that time, 



212 SELECTED LETTERS 

accompanied with clapping of hands and stamping of 
feet, was in this deponent^s case thundering and awful. 
And this deponent further saith, that his white-and- 
black or magpie waistcoat, did create a strong sensa- 
tion, and that during the hours of promenading, this 
deponent heard from persons surrounding him such 
exclamations as ^^ What is it? Is it a waistcoat? No, 
it^s a shirt'' — and the like — all of which this deponent 
believes to have been complimentary and gratifying; 
but this deponent further saith that he is now going to 
supper, and wishes he may have an appetite to eat it. 

Charles Dickens 
Sworn before me, at the Adelphi 

Hotel, Liverpool, on the Twenty- 
sixth of February, 1844 

S. Radley 

4. Charles Dickens to Washington Irving 

[1842] 
My dear Sir,^- 

There is no man in the world who could have given 
me the heartfelt pleasure you have, by your kind note 
of the thirteenth of last month. There is no living 
writer, and there are very few among the dead, whose 
approbation I should feel so proud to earn. And with 
everything you have written upon my shelves, and in 
my thoughts, and in my heart of hearts, I may honestly 
and truly say so. If you could know how earnestly 
I write this, you would be glad to read it — as I hope you 



CHARLES DICKENS 213 

will be, faintly guessing at the warmth of the hand I 
hold out to you over the broad Atlantic. 

I wish I could find in your welcome letter some hint 
of an intention to visit England. I can't. I have held 
it at arm's length, and taken a bird's-eye view of it, 
after reading it a great many times, but there is no 
greater encouragement in it this way than on a micro- 
scopic inspection. I should love to go with you — as I 
have gone, God knows how often — into Little Britain, 
and Eastcheap, and Green Arbour Court, and West- 
minster Abbey. I should Hke to travel with you, out- 
side the last of the coaches down to Bracebridge Hall.^ 
It would make my heart glad to compare notes with 
you about that shabby gentleman in the oilcloth hat and 
red nose, who sat in the nine-cornered back-parlour of 
the Masons' Arms; and about Robert Preston and the 
tallow-chandler's widow, whose sitting-room is second 
nature to me; and about all those delightful places and 
people that I used to walk about and dream of in the 
daytime, when a very small and not over-particularly- 
taken-care-of boy. I have a good deal to say, too, 
about that dashing Alonzo de Ojeda, that you can't 
help being fonder of than you ought to be; and much 
to hear concerning Moorish legend, and poor unhappy 
Boabdil.^ Diedrich Knickerbocker ^ I have worn to 
death in my pocket, and yet I should show you his 
mutilated carcass with a joy past all expression. 

I have been so accustomed to associate you with my 
pleasantest and happiest thoughts, and with my leisure 
hours, that I rush at once into full confidence with you, 



214 SELECTED LETTERS 

and fall, as it were naturally and by the very laws of 
gravity, into your open arms. Questions come throng- 
ing to my pen as to the lips of people who meet after 
long hoping to do so. I don^t know what to say first 
or what to leave unsaid, and am constantly disposed to 
break off and tell you again how glad I am this moment 
has arrived. 

My dear Washington Irving, I cannot thank you 
enough for your cordial and generous praise, or tell you 
what deep and lasting gratification it has given me. I 
hope to have many letters from you, and to exchange 
a frequent correspondence. I send this to say so. After 
the first two or three I shall settle down into a con- 
nected style, and become gradually rational. 

You know what the feeling is, after having written a 
letter, sealed it, and sent it off. I shall picture you 
reading this, and answering it before it has lain one 
night in the post-office. Ten to one that before the 
fastest packet could reach New York I shall be writing 
again. 

Do you suppose the post-office clerks care to receive 
letters? I have my doubts. They get into a dreadful 
habit of indifference. A postman, I imagine, is quite 
callous. Conceive his delivering one to himself, without 
being startled by a preliminary double knock. 

Always your faithful Friend, 
Charles Dickens 



CHARLES DICKENS 215 

5. Charles Dickens to Douglas J err old 

Cremona, Saturday Night, 
Sixteenth November, 1844 
My dear Jerrold — 

As half a loaf is better than no bread, so I hope that 
half a sheet of paper may be better than none at all, 
coming from one who is anxious to live in your memory 
and friendship. I should have redeemed the pledge I 
gave you in this regard long since, but occupation at 
one time, and absence from pen and ink at another, 
have prevented me. 

Forster has told you, or will tell you, that I very much 
wish you to hear my Httle Christmas book; and I hope 
you will meet me, at his bidding, in Lincoln's Inn Fields.^ 
I have tried to strike a blow upon that part of the brass 
countenance of wicked Cant,^ when such a compliment 
is sorely needed at this time, and I trust that the result 
of my training is at least the exhibition of a strong 
desire to make it a staggerer. If you should think at 
the end of the four rounds (there are no more) that the 
said Cant, in the language of BelPs Life, ^^ comes up 
piping,'' I shall be very much the better for it. 

I was rather shocked yesterday (I am not strong in 
geographical details) to find that Romeo ^ was only 
banished twenty-five miles. That is the distance be- 
tween Mantua and Verona. The latter is a quaint 
old place with great houses in it that are now solitary 
and shut up — exactly the place it ought to be. The 
former has a great many apothecaries in it at this mo- 



216 SELECTED LETTERS 

ment, who could play that part to the life. For of all 
the stagnant ponds I ever beheld, it is the' greenest 
and weediest. I went to see the old palace of the 
Capulets, which is still distinguished by their cognisance 
(a hat carved in stone on the courtyard wall). It is 
a miserable inn. The court was full of crazy coaches, 
carts, geese, and pigs, and was ankle-deep in mud and 
dung. The garden is walled off and built out. There 
was nothing to connect it with its old inhabitants, 
and a very unsentimental lady at the kitchen door. 
The Montagues used to live some two or three miles 
off in the country. It does not appear quite clear 
whether they ever inhabited Verona itself. But there 
is a village bearing their name to this day, and traditions 
of the quarrels between the two famihes are still as 
nearly alive as anything can be, in such a drowsy 
neighbourhood. 

You rather entertained a notion, once, of coming to 
see me at Genoa. I shall return straight, on the ninth 
of December, limiting my stay in to\vn to one week. 
Now couldn't you come back with me? The journey, 
that way, is very cheap, costing little more than twelve 
pounds; and I am sure the gratification to you would 
be high. I am lodged in quite a wonderful place, and 
would put you in a painted room, as big as a church 
and much more comfortable. There are pens and ink 
upon the premises; orange trees, gardens, battledores 
and shuttlecocks, rousing wood-fires for evenings, 
and a welcome worth having. 

Come. Letter from a gentleman in Italy to Brad- 



CHARLES DICKENS 217 

bury and Evans ^ in London. Letter from a gentleman 
in a country gone to sleep to a gentleman in a country 
that would go to sleep too, and never wake again, if 
some people had their way. You can work in Genoa. 
The house is used to it. It is exactly a week^s post. 
Have that portmanteau looked to, and when we meet, 
say, ^1 am coming.'' 

I have never in my life been so struck by any place 
as by Venice. It is the wonder of the world. Dreamy, 
beautiful, inconsistent, impossible, wicked, shadowy 
old place. I entered it by night, and the sensation of 
that night and the bright morning that followed is a 
part of me for the rest of my existence. And, oh God, 
the cells below the water, underneath the Bridge of 
Sighs; the nook where the monk came at midnight to 
confess the political offender; the bench where he was 
strangled; the deadly little vault in which they tied him 
in a sack, and the stealthy crouching little door through 
which they hurried him into a boat, and bore him away 
to sink him where no fisherman dare cast his net — all 
shown by torches that blink and wink, as if they were 
ashamed to look upon the gloomy theatre of sad horrors; 
past and gone as they are, these things stir a man's 
blood, like a great wrong or passion of the instant. 
And with these in their minds, and with a museum 
there, having a chamber full of such frightful instru- 
ments of torture as the devil in a brain fever could 
scarcely invent, there are hundreds of parrots, who will 
declaim to you in speech and print, by the hour to- 
gether, on the degeneracy of the times in which a rail- 



218 



SELECTED LETTERS 



road is building across the water at Venice; instead of 
going down on their knees, the drivellers, and thanking 
Heaven that they live in a time when iron makes roads, 
instead of prison bars and engines for driving screws 
into the skulls of innocent men. I could almost turn 
bloody-minded, and shoot the parrots of our island 
with as little compunction as Robinson Crusoe shot 
the parrots in his. 

I have not been in bed, these ten days, after five in 
the morning, and have been travelling many hours 
every day. If this be the cause of my inflicting a very 
stupid and sleepy letter on you, my dear Jerrold, I 
hope it will be a kind of signal at the same time, of my 
wish to hail you lovingly even from this sleepy and un- 
promising state. — And believe me as I am, 

Always your Friend and Admirer 

6. Charles Dickens to W. Wilkie Collins 

Tavistock House, Sixth June, 1854 
MY DEAR COLLINS: 



S O c3 



o S. 



§3 

:: CO 



So, 



Day, Thursday. 



Hour, Quarter past 11 a. m. 



Place, Dover Terminus, London Bridge. 



Destination, Tunbridge Wells. 



Description of Railway Qualification, Return 
Ticket. 



(Signed) 
Entd 



Charles Dickens 



CHARLES DICKENS 219 

7. Charles Dickens to F, D. Finlay 

Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent, 

Tuesday, Third September, 1867 

This is to certify that the undersigned victim of a 
periodical paragraph-disease, which usually breaks out 
once in every seven years (proceeding to England by 
the overland route to India and per Cunard line to 
America, where it strikes the base of the Rocky Moun- 
tains, and, rebounding to Europe, perishes on the steppes 
of Russia), is not in a '^ critical state of health,'' and has 
not consulted '^ eminent surgeons," and never was better 
in his life, and is not recommended to proceed to the 
United States for '^ cessation from literary labour," 
and has not had so much as a headache for twenty 
years. Charles Dickens 

8. Charles Dickens to Miss Dickens 

Parker House, Boston, 
Thursday, Twenty-first November, 1867 

I arrived here on Tuesday night, after a very slow 
passage from Halifax against head-winds. All the 
tickets for the first four readings here (all yet an- 
nounced) were sold immediately on their being issued. 

You know that I begin on the Second of December 
with Carol and Trial'? Shall be heartily glad to begin 
to count the readings off. 

This is an immense hotel, with all manner of white 
marble public passages and public rooms. I live in 



220 SELECTED LETTERS 

a corner high up, and have a hot and cold bath in 
my bedroom (communicating with the sitting-room), 
and comforts not in existence when I was here be- 
fore. The cost of hving is enormous, but happily we 
can afford it. I dine to-day with Longfellow, Emer- 
son, Holmes, and Agassiz. Longfellow was here 
yesterday. Perfectly white in hair and beard, but 
a remarkably handsome and notable-looking man. 
The city has increased enormously in five-and-twenty 
years. It has grown more mercantile — is like Leeds 
mixed with Preston, and flavored with New Brighton; 
but for smoke and fog you substitute an exquisitely 
bright light air. I found my rooms beautifully deco- 
rated (by Mrs. Fields) with choice flowers, and set off 
by a number of good books. I am not much persecuted 
by people in general, as Dolby ^ has happily made up 
his mind that the less I am exhibited for nothing the 
better. So our men sit outside the room door and 
wrestle with mankind. 

We had speech-making and singing in the saloon of 
the Cuba after the last dinner of the voyage. I think 
I have acquired a higher reputation from drawing out 
the captain, and getting him to take the second in 
'^ Airs Well,'' and likewise in ^^ There's not in the wide 
world" (your parent taking first), than from anything 
previously known of me on these shores. I hope the 
effect of these achievements may not dim the lustre 
of the readings. We also sang (with a Chicago lady, 
and a strong-minded woman from I don't know where) 
*' Auld Lang Syne," with a tender melancholy, expres- 



CHARLES DICKENS 221 

sive of having all four been united from our cradles. The 
more dismal we were, the more delighted the company 
were. Once (when we paddled i' the burn) the captain 
took a little cruise round the compass on his own ac- 
count, touching at the ^^ Canadian Boat Song,'' and 
taking in supplies at '^ Jubilate,'' ^^ Seas between us 
braid ha' roared," and roared like the seas themselves. 
Finally, I proposed the ladies in a speech that convulsed 
the stewards, and we closed with a brilliant success. 
Hillard has just been in and sent his love ^^ to those dear 
girls." He has grown much older. He is now District 
Attorney of the State of Massachusetts, which is a 
very good office. Best love to your aunt and Katie, 
and Charley and all his house, and all friends. 



XXX 

The letters of James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) fill two large 
volumes, in spite of the fact that he frequently expressed a dis- 
taste for letter- writing. Although he had the reputation at 
Harvard of being indolent, yet few men have labored more 
conscientiously than he, as teacher, editor, writer, lecturer, and 
diplomat. He said he was ^^ forever busy.'* While under the 
restraint and pressure of his various duties, his letters to his in- 
timate friends afforded him an outlet for free, spontaneous ex- 
pression. Many of his most characteristic letters are addressed 
to Miss Jane Norton, the daughter of Charles Eliot Norton. 
James T. Fields was an author of distinction and editor of the 
Atlantic Monthly. Thomas Bailey Aldrich, a writer of polished 
verse and author of The Story of a Bad Boy, was one of LowelFs 
closest friends. Lowell's rich experiences in America and Europe 
supplied his ready pen with delightful material for letter-writing. 

1. James Russell Lowell to Miss Norton * 

(Beverly) Ship Underhillj Eldrege, Mistress, 

Lat. 40° 20' Long, (bad observation). 
Islands of Sirens bearing E. S. E. 23^ miles. 

Aug. 14, 1854 

If I may trust a rather poor memory — without a book 
to make a crutch of — I ought to thank you for having 
given me so happy an example of the force of habit. 
Some four thousand years ago the fountain of Arethusa ^ 
went down near Eleusis (?) and came up at Syracuse in 

* From Letters of James Russell Lowell. Copyright, 1893, by 
Harper & Brothers. 

222 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 223 

Sicily, and now, translated to America and tolerably 
well bound, it has contrived to do the same thing 
between Shady Hill and Newport. I am quite content. 
I could not have a better minister resident, nor one less 
intrusive, only reminding you of me when you choose to 
give an audience, and then always saying better things 
than I could. So pray do not give her her passports yet. 
I shall bring the ^^ Conversations^' when I am happy 
enough to come myself. 

Now — in order that you may not fancy (as most 
persons who go to Rhode Island do) that Newport is the 
only place in the world where there is any virtue in 
salt water — I will say a word or two of Beverly. Coun- 
try and seashore are combined here in the most charm- 
ing way. Find the Yankee word for Sorrento,^ and you 
have Beverly — it is only the Bay of Naples translated 
into the New England dialect. The ocean and the 
forest are not estranged here, and the trees trust them- 
selves down to the water's edge most confidingly. In 
some places the ivy plays in the air and the kelp in the 
water, like children of different ranks making shy 
advances to each other. Close behind us rises a rocky 
hill, and the pine woods begin — wonderful woods, 
called Witch Woods by the natives because it is so 
easy to lose your way in them. All through them 
strange rocks bulge out — amphibious-looking hybrids 
between seashore and inland — their upper edges fringed 
lightly with ferns that seem to entangle the sunshine 
and hold it fast, and their bases rough with queer 
lichens that look like water-weeds. I think there is 



224 SELECTED LETTERS 

more ocean than land in the blood of these rocks, and 
they always seem to me listening and waiting for the 
waves. If you leap down from one of them you sink 
ankle-deep in springy pine-tassel or moss. Somewhere 
in these woods is a visionary clearing and farm-house, 
w^hich every one gets a glimpse of — but no man hath 
seen twice. You hear the crowing of cocks, the con- 
tented low of cattle rubbing their soft throats over the 
pohshed bars, and sometimes a muffled throb of flails; 
presently, through some wood-gap, you see the chimney 
and the blue breath of the hearth in the cool air, but 
when you have made your way through the next 
thicket, all is gone. I think it is the farm of one of the 
old Salem warlocks,^ and buy my vegetables warily, 
fearful of some ill thing. Here and there, climbing 
some higher rock, you get a gleam of sea through some 
scoop in the woods, — a green cup filled half with potable 
gold. 

We are in a little house close upon the road, with the 
sea just below, as seen through a fringe of cedar, wild 
cherry and barberry. Beyond this fringe is a sand- 
beach where we bathe. As I look out of my win- 
dow I see the flicker of the sea's golden scales (which 
the moon will by and by touch with her long wand and 
turn to silver) stretching eastward forever. We are at 
the foot of a bay, across the mouth of which lies a line 
of islands — some bare rock, some shrubby, and some 
wooded. These are the true islands of the Sirens. One 
has been disenchanted by a great hotel, to which a 
steamboat runs innumerably every day with a band — 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 225 

the energetic boong! boong! — boong! boong! boong! — of 
the bass drum being all we hear. Our sunset is all in 
the southeast, and every evening the clouds and islands 
bloom and the slow sails are yellowed and the dories 
become golden birds swinging on the rosy water. 

Well, well, after all, I am only saying that Nature is 
here as well as at Newport, and that she has not lost 
her knack at miracles. But at Newport you have no 
woods, and ours are so grand and deep and uncon- 
verted! They have those long pauses of conscious 
silence that are so fine, as if the spirit that inhabits them 
were hiding from you and holding its breath — and then 
all the leaves stir again, and the pines cheat the rocks 
with their mock surf, and that invisible bird that 
haunts such solitudes calls once and is answered, and 
then silence again. I would not have told you how 
much better this is than your Rhode Island glories — 
only that you Newport folks always seem a little (I must 
go to my Yankee) stuck up, as if Newport were all the 
world, and you the saints that had inherited it. But I 
hope to see you and Newport soon, and I will be lenient. 
You shall find in me the Beverly grandeur of soul which 
can acknowledge alien merit. 

2. James Russell Lowell to Miss Norton 

Madison, Wisconsin, April 9, 1855 

Though I have been in such dreadfully low spirits 
since I left home that I have not seen much to write 
about, yet I like to keep my promises, and as I have 



226 SELECTED LETTERS 

had one very pleasant adventure, I will try to make a 
letter of it. I will premise generally that I hate this 
business of lecturing. To be received at a bad inn by a 
solemn committee, in a room with a stove that smokes 
but not exhilarates, to have three cold fish-tails laid 
in your hand to shake, to be carried to a cold lecture- 
room, to read a cold lecture to a cold audience, to be 
carried back to your smoke-side, paid, and the three 
fish-tails again — well, it is not delightful exactly. On 
the whole, I was so desperate that, after a week of it, 
I wrote out thither to be let off — but they would not, 
and so here I am. I shall go home with six hundred 
dollars in my pocket, and one of those insects so com- 
mon in Italy and Egypt in my ear. Sometimes, though, 
one has very pleasant times, and one gets tremendous 
puffs in the local papers. 

But I have a nice little oasis to talk about — so I will 
to that. I arrived, then, at Bagg's Hotel, in Utica, 
which (the hotel) has a railroad running through it — 
so you may fancy how pleasant it is — to dinner, and it 
occurred to me that it was Saturday, that I was only 
twelve miles from Trenton Falls, ^ and that I had no 
engagement till Monday evening. To the Falls, then, 
I would go and spend the Sunday. Mr. Baggs assured 
me that it was in vain; that Mr. Moore, at Trenton, 
would not ^Hake anybody in'' (so he dubiously phrased 
it) in winter; and that I should have my cold drive for 
my pains. I had travelled enough not to take any- 
thing for granted, — so I hired a ^^ cutter'' and a pair of 
horses and a huge buffalo-skin coat to drive, and set 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 227 

out. It was snowy and blowy and cold, and part of the 
way the snow was level with the backs of the horses 
(Bison-skin had prophesied it, but I did not believe 
till I saw) — and think of it, on the 24th of March! 

We drove fast in spite of the deep snow, for we ^^had 
the pootiest pair o' colts that went eout o' Utiky,'' and 
in about an hour and a half drew up in front of the 
huge deserted hotel, its dark colour looking drearier 
in contrast with the white snow and under the gather- 
ing twilight. I tried the front door in vain. The 
roll of skins suggested a door below. I went, knocked, 
and a grave, respectable man in black (looking not the 
least like an American landlord) opened the door and 
said, ^^Good-evening, sir.'' 

^^Good-evening, sir. Mr. Moore, I believe?'' 

'^That's my name, sir." 

'^ Can you lodge me till Monday?" 

''We do not keep our house open in winter, and prefer 
to live privately, sir." 

This was said in such a quiet way that I saw there 
was nothing more to be said on the tavern side — so I 
changed my front. 

'^I have seen the Falls several times in summer, and 
thought I should like to see them in their winter fashions. 
They must be even more beautiful, I fancy. I hoped 
also to have a quiet Sunday here, after a week's rail- 
roading" — and I gave a despairing look at the gloomy 
weather and the heap of bison-skin. 

Mr. Moore loves his Falls, and I had touched 
him. 



228 SELECTED LETTERS 

''I will ask Mrs. Moore, and see what she says; she 
will have all the trouble/' 

He opened a door, said something I could not hear, 
and instantly a sweet, motherly voice said, 

^^ Certainly, by all means/' 

'^Mrs. Moore says she will be happy to have you 
stay. Walk in, sir. I will have your luggage attended 
to.'' 

Meanwhile I had not told Mr. Moore my name, of 
which (however illustrious) I feared he might never 
have heard, and there was no mark on trunk or carpet- 
bag by which he could discover it. Presently we sat 
down to tea, and I was charmed with the gentle and 
affectionate atmosphere of the family. There was a 
huge son, and two little girls and a boy — I wish Wendell 
Holmes could have seen them — the stoutest children 
I ever saw. Then there was a daughter-in-law — a 
very sweet-looking girl with her first child, a lovely 
baby of a year old who never cried. I know that 
first babies never do — but he never did. After tea 
Mr. Moore and I smoked and talked together. I 
found him a man with tastes for medals, pictures, 
engravings, music, and fruit culture. He played very 
well on a parlor-organ, and knew many artists whom I 
also knew. Moreover, he was a Unitarian. So we got 
along nicely. Mrs. Moore was handsome and gentle. 
She was a granddaughter of Roger Sherman! After 
our cigars Mr. Moore showed me his books, and among 
others the '^ Homes of American Authors." He asked 
me if I had ever seen it. Here was a chance to intro- 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 229 

duce myself quietly. So I said, ^^ Yes, .and I will show 
you where I live/^ I showed him accordingly the print 
of Elmwood, and he grew more friendly than ever. 

I went out in the night to get my first sight of the 
Falls, refusing to be accompanied and profusely warned 
of the danger of the ravine's frozen and slippery edges. 
They were slippery, but I did not tumble in, as you see. 
(Forgive my chirography. I am writing with tears in 
my eyes, for my stove smokes worse than common.) As 
I looked down into the gorge, after wandering through 
the giant hemlocks, nothing could be finer. The 
edges of the stream were frozen and covered with light, 
new-fallen snow, so that by contrast the stream seemed 
black, wholly black. The night gave mystery to the 
profound abyss, and I fancied it was the Water of 
Oblivion I was gazing down at. From afar I heard 
the murmur of the first fall, and I felt again a true 
poetic enthusiasm revive in me, dead for so long. I 
feared to stay, there was such an impulse to leap down. 
For the first time I became conscious of the treachery 
of the ice-edge, and I walked backward cautiously 
into the wood. Then I made my way among the trees 
and over fallen hemlock trunks, guided by the increasing 
murmur to the first fall. I now found (or guessed) 
why there was so little roar. The fall was entirely 
muffled in ice. I could just see it through the darkness, 
a wall, or rather veil, of ice covering it wholly. It was 
a perfectly frozen waterfall, as I discovered the next 
morning — for the front of it had thawed in the sun so 
that it was polished as water and was ribbed and 



230 SELECTED LETTERS 

wrinkled like a cascade, while the heap of snowy debris 
below made the spray. I went back to the house and 
(charming inconsistency of this double nature of ours!), 
with the tears scarce dry in my eyes, sat down to smoke 
another cigar with Mr. Moore and to play Dr. Busby 
with the children. 

Here I was broken off short — and have not had a 
moment since; I am now at the Burnet House, Cin- 
cinnati, and it is Friday, the 12th April. I go on. 

In the morning Mr. IVIoore took me out and showed 
me the best points of view, after which he considerately 
left me. It was a cold morning, and the spray, as it 
rose, crystalized in feathers, as fine as those of a moth, 
on the shrubs and trees and sides of the gorge. For a 
few moments the sun shone and lighted up all these 
delicate ice-ferns, which, in texture, were like those star- 
shaped flakes that fall from very cold clouds. After- 
wards I saw Niagara, but he is a coarser artist, and had 
plastered all the trees with ice like alabaster. He is a 
clumsy fellow compared with Cuyahora. The ice- 
work along the rock at Trenton is very lovely. Some- 
times it hangs lightly, honeycombed by the sun and 
bent by the wind from the fall as it froze — looking 
like the Venetian lace drapery of an altar. At other 
times it has frozen in filtering stalactites precisely 
like organ pipes. 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 231 

3. James Russell Lowell to Miss Norton 

Elmwood, Aug. 12, 1861 

Two important events have taken place lately, which 
I shall mention in the order of their respective greatness. 
1st. The Agricultural Festival; 2nd. The election of 
Mayor. And now of the CereaHa.^ (Don^t confound 
this with Serialia and suppose I have taken up the At- 
lantic again.) You must know then that Cambridge 
boasts of two distinguished farmers — Mr. John Holmes, 
of Holmes Place, and him who would be, in a properly 
constituted order of things, the Marquess of Thompson 
Lot with a p. The Marquess, fearing that (since 
Squire Holmes cultivated his own estate with his own 
hands and a camp-stool) his rival might be in want of 
food and too proud to confess it, generously resolved to 
give him a dinner, which, to save his feelings, he adroitly 
veiled with the pretence of an Agricultural Festival and 
Show of Vegetables. Dr. Howe and Mr. Storey were 
the other guests, '^when^' (as the ^^ Annual Register '^ 
would say) the following vegetables were served up 
with every refinement of the culinary art: 1° Egg- 
plants; 2° Squash; 3° Beets; 4° Carrots; 5° Potatoes; 
6° Tomatoes; 7° Turnips; 8° Beans; 9° Corn; 10° Cu- 
cumbers (and not exhibited, partly out of modesty and 
partly for want of suitable dishes, but alluded to 
modestly from time to time), 11° Cabbages; 12° Salsify. 
Of fruits there was a variety also from the estate, con- 
sisting chiefly of 1° Raspberries and 2° Blackberries. 
Cider, also from the estate, was kept back out of 



232 SELECTED LETTERS 

tenderness to the guests, and because that was home- 
made vinegar in the casters. ^^ After the cloth was 
removed ^^ the chairman rose, and with suitable solem- 
nity gave the first regular toast — ^^ Speed the Plough/' 
This was acknowledged by Mr. Holmes in a neat 
speech. He said that ''he felt himself completely 
squashed by the abundance before him. That, as there 
was nothing wanting, so nothing could be marked with 
a caret A . That Micawber ^ himself would have been 
pleased with the turmips, than which who nose any- 
thing more charmingly retrousse? That he could say 
with great Julius,^ Venij vidi, vici, I came and saw a beet. 
That he could but stammer his astonishment at a 
board so cu-cumbered with delicacies. That he envied 
the potatoes their e^^es to look on such treasures. That 
the Tom-martyrs were worthy the best ages of the 
Church, and fit successors of St. Thomas. That with 
such corn who would not be a toemartyr? That he 
hoped ho one would criticise his remarks in a punk- 
intilious spirit.^' This, as you will imagine, is quite an 
inadequate report of the remarks he might have made. 
The dinner went off with great good humour and we 
had cards in the evening. Your affectionate 

Thompson Lot 

4. James Russell Lowell to James T, Fields 

Elmwood, March 23, 1869 
My dear Fields, — 

I don^t see why the New York poets should have all 

the sonnets to themselves, nor why we shouldn^t be 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 233 

literary now and then as well as they. With the 
help of Walker's Rhyming Dictionary and Lempriere, 
I have hammered out fourteen lines to you, which 
I honestly think are as much like Shakespeare's sonnets 
as some others I have seen. Your name does not con- 
sent so kindly to an invocation as Stoddard ^ or Taylor 
or Boker or Richard or Bayard, which, albeit trochees, 
may well displace an iambus in the first foot. 

''Richard, thy verse that like molasses runs,'^ launches 
your sonnet without a hitch. I tried at first to evade 
the difficulty by beginning boldly, 

James T., the year, in its revolving round, 
Hath brought once more the tributary pig — • 

but it wants that classical turn which lends grace to 
your true sonnets as shaped by the great masters 
in this kind of writing. So I have hit on another ex- 
pedient, which I think will serve the turn. As I find 
some of my critics blame me as too scholarly and ob- 
scure because I use such words as microcosm — which 
send even well-read men to their dictionaries — I have 
added a few notes : 

Poseidon^ Fields, who dost the ^ Atlantic ^ sway, 
Making it swell, or flattening at thy will! 

^ "Poseidon," a fabulous deity, called by the Latins Neptunus; 
here applied to Fields as presiding over the issues of the Atlantic. 

2 "the Atlantic," to be read "th' Atlantic/' in order to avoid 
the hiatus or gap where two vowels come together. Authority 
for this will be found in Milton and other poets. 

2 ''Atlantic,'^ a well-known literary magazine. 



234 SELECTED LETTERS 

O glaucous 1 one, be thou propitious still 

To me, a minnum 2 dandled on thy spray! ' 

Eftsoons ^ a milk-white porkerlet ^ we slay. 

No sweeter e'er repaid Eumseus' ^ skill; 

A blameless Lamb ^ thereon might feed his fill, 

Deeming he cropped the new-sprung herb ^ of May. 

Our board do thou and Amphitrite ^ grace; 

Archbishop ^^ of our hterary sea, 

Lay by thy trident-crozier for a space, 

* '^Glaucous,'' between blue and green, an epithet of Poseidon, 
and an editor who shows greenness is sure to look blue in con- 
sequence. 

2 ^'Minnum," vulgo pro minnow, utpote species minima pis- 
cium. 

' ^^ Dandled on thy spray!'' — a striking figure. Horace has 
pisdum et summa genus hcesit ulmo, but the poverty of the Latin 
did not allow this sport of fancy with the double meaning of the 
word spray. 

* '' Eftsoons." — This word (I think) may be found in Spencer. 
It means soon after, i. e., before long. 

^ ^'Porkerlet," a pretty French diminutive, as in roitelet. 

6 ^'Eumseus," the swineherd of Ulysses, a character in 
Homer. 

^ '^Lamb," a well-known literary character of the seventeenth 
century, chiefly remembered for having burnt his house to roast 
a favorite pig. He invented mint-sauce. 

8 ''Herb" — grass — Borrow a Bible, and you will find the word 
thus used in that once popular work. 

9 ''Amphitrite," the beautiful spouse of Poseidon. 

10 "Archbishop."— This is the Elizabethan style. (N. B., the 
play is upon sea and see.) This term is beautifully, may I not say 
piously, appropriate, since the Grecian gods have all been re- 
placed by Christian saints, and St. Anthony of Padua converted 
the finny nomads of the deep. He found a ready herring, I sup- 
pose. 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 235 

And try our forks; or, earless ^ to our plea, 
Let this appease thee and the frown displace: 
The Gurneys come and John 2 — then answer, Oui! ^ 

There! I think I have made that clear enough except 
in one particular, namely, its meaning. I don't admit 
that a sonnet needs anything so vulgar — but this one 
means that I want you and Mrs. Fields to eat a tithe- 
pig ^ ('tis an offering of William's) with us in about 
ten days from now. I will fix the day as soon as I 
find out when the fairy creature will be ripe. 

I have corrected nearly all of one volume, and dreary 
work it is. I know nothing more depressing than to 
look one's old poems in the face. If Rousseau's ^ brats 
had come back upon his hands from the Enfans Trouves, 
he would have felt just as I do. 

Always yours 
J. R. L. 

1 "Earless." — This is not to be taken literally, as in the case 
of Defoe, or as Hotspur misinterprets Glendower's "bootless." 
It means simply deaf. 

2 "John." — It is hardly necessary to say that there is but one 
John — to wit, J. Holmes, Esq., of Holmes Place. 

^ "Oui," a neat transition to the French tongue, conveying at 
once a compliment to the learning of the person addressed and 
an allusion to his editorial position. Editors and kings always 
say We, 



236 SELECTED LETTERS 

5. James Russell Lowell to Miss Norton 

Elmwood, Sept. 6, 1869 

1. You order me, dear Jane, to write a sonnet, 

2. Behold the initial verse and eke the second; 

3. This is the third (if I have rightly reckoned), 

4. And now I clap the fourth and fifth upon it 

5. As easily as you would don your bonnet; 

6. The sixth comes tripping in as soon as beckoned, 

7. Nor for the seventh is my brain infecund; 

8. A shocking rhyme ! but, while you pause to con it, 

9. The eighth is finished, with the ninth to follow; 

10. As for the tenth, why, that must wedge between 

11. The ninth and this I am at present scrawling; 

12. Twelve with nine matches pat as wings of swallow; 

13. Blushingly after that comes coy thirteen; 

14. And this crowns all, as sailor his tarpauling. 

I confess that I stole the idea of the above sonnet 
from one of Lope de Vega's/ written under similar 
circumstances. Now, in that very sonnet Lope offers 
you a bit of instruction by which I hope you will profit 
and never again ask for one in twelve lines. He says, 
in so many words, 

Catorce versos dicen que es soneto ^ 

one more than even the proverbial baker's dozen, which 
shows the unthriftiness of poets in their own wares — or, 
perhaps you will say, their somewhat tiresome liberality. 
I dare say most sonnets would be better if cut off, hke 
the cur's tail, just behind the ears. Having given you 
this short and easy lesson in the essential element of 
Petrarch's ^ inspiration, I now proceed to do another 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 237 

sonnet in the received sentimental style of those some- 
what artificial compositions. 

Ah, think not, dearest Maid, that I forget! 

Say, in midwinter doth the prisoned bee 

Forget the flowers he whilom held in fee? 

In free-winged fantasy he hovers yet 

O'er pansy-tufts and beds of mignonette. 

And I, from honeyed cells of memory 

Drawing in darkened days my stores of thee, 

Seek La Pacotte on dream-wings of regret. 

I see thee vernal as when first I saw, 

Buzzing in quest of sugar for my rhyme; 

And this, my heart assures me, is Love's law, 

That he annuls the season's frosty clime. 

And, warmly wrapped against Obhvion's flaw. 

Tastes in his garnered sweets the blossoming thyme. 

Perhaps the eighth verse would be better thus, 
Fly on dream-wings to La Pacotte, you bet! 

That, at least, has the American flavor, which our 
poetry is said to lack. I do not mean by the twelfth 
verse to insinuate anything unfeeling. It is merely 
to be in keeping with the laws of the sonnet, and to 
bring the thought back to where it set out, Hke a kitten 
playing with its own tail. But I will confess to you that 
I am getting so gray that I see it; so you may be sure 
there is not much to choose between me and the tradi- 
tional badger. Happily, I am grown no stouter, though 
already ^^more fat than bard beseems.^' 

But why have I not written all this while? For all 
August I have a valid excuse. First, I was writing 



238 SELECTED LETTERS 

a poem, and second, a pot-boiler. The poem turned 
out to be something immense, as the slang is nowadays, 
that is, it ran on to eight hundred lines of blank verse. 
I hope it is good, for it fairly trussed me at last and bore 
me up as high as my poor lungs will bear into the heaven 
of invention. I was happy writing it, and so steeped 
in it that if I had written to you it would have been in 
blank verse. It is a kind of religious poem, and is 
called ^^ A Day at Chartres.'^ I remember telling Charles 
once that I had it under my hair. I can't tell you 
how it will stand. Already I am beginning to — to — you 
know what I mean — to taste my champagne next 
morning. However, you will see it in the January 
Atlantic, and you must try to like it and me. I can't 
spare either. 

6. James Russell Lowell to Thomas Bailey Aldrich 

Elmwood, Nov. 30, 1869 
My dear Aldrich, — 

It is a capital little book ^ — but I had read it all be- 
fore, and liked it thoroughly. It has been pretty much 
all my novel reading all summer. I think it is whole- 
some, interesting, and above all, natural. The only 
quarrel I have with you is that I found in it that in- 
famous word ^'transpired.'' E-pluribus-unum it! Why 
not '^ happened"? You are on the very brink of the 
pit. I read in the paper t'other day that some folks 
had ''extended a dinner to the Hon." Somebody or 
other. There was something pleasing to the baser man 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 239 

in fancying it held out in a pair of tongs, as too many 
of our Hon^bles deserve — but consider where EngHsh 
is going! 

I know something about Rivermouth myself — only 
before you were born. I remember in my seventh year 
opening a long red chest in the '^ mansion'^ of the late 
famous Dr. Brackett, and being confronted with a 
skeleton — the first I had ever seen. The Mysteries of 
Udolpho ^ were nothing to it, for a child, somehow, is 
apt to think that these anatomies are always made so 
by foul means, a creed which I still hold to a certain 
extent. 

However, I am not writing to tell you about myself — 
but merely to say how much I like your little book, 
I wish it had been twice as large! I shall send you a 
thin one of my ovm before long, and shall be content 
if it give you half the pleasure. Make my kind re- 
membrances acceptable to Mrs. Aldrich, and tell the 
twins I wish they may both grow up Bad Boys. 

Cordially yours 
J. R. Lowell 

7. James Russell Lowell to Mrs, Lowell 

ViCTORL^ Hotel, Dresden, Oct. 16, 1881 

It is just twenty-five years since I was in Dresden, 
and there is something sad in coming back an old man 
to a place familiar to you when much younger. But 
I must take up my diary again. When I wrote yester- 
day (from Weimar) I was uncertain whether I should 



240 SELECTED LETTERS 

see Goethe's house (I mean the inside of it) or not. At 
any rate, I would see the garden-house he built when he 
first came to Weimar. So I took the drollest little bow- 
legged valet-de-place, who touched his hat and called 
me Excellenz whenever he could catch my eye. I had 
taken him with the express stipulation that he shouldn't 
open his mouth, and this was the compromise he made. 
Our walk led through the Park and along the Ilm. The 
Park, except the paths, is left pretty much to nature. 
It is very charming. The garden-house turned out 
to be about twenty minutes' walk. It was a very sim- 
ple affair of stone, about twenty feet square, roughly 
built, but beautifully set on the edge of a meadow 
sloping to the river. It was odd to find that my associa- 
tions with Weimar, which are so vivid that I seem to 
have seen the persons and can hardly persuade myself 
I did not know Frau von Stein, ^ should be more than 
a century old. Goethe was building this house just 
as our Revolution began. When I got back I found a 
card from Baron v. Brincken, informing me that Herr v. 
Goethe would be glad to see me at half-past one. So 
I saw what I went to Weimar for after all. There was 
a small collection of antique gems, of drawings and 
engravings, and of very good majolica. There were 
also some bronzes, none of them remarkable. The 
Studienzimmer was what interested me most — the 
plain little table and desk, with the chair waiting its 
master. Out of it opened the sleeping-room with the 
bed in which he died, — about as large as a Spanish 
alcoha, and showing how little good air has to do with 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 241 

long life. Everything was very dingy, and the study 
especially ill-lighted. I have an engraving of it some- 
where, so that I have been wondering ever since if I 
had not seen it before. 

I am going out presently to see the Sistine Madonna 
and a few other old friends again. They will not have 
changed or grown older. 



XXXI 

Charles Kingsley (1819-1875) was an English poet, clergy- 
man, and novelist. He held the curacy of Eversley, in Hamp- 
shire, for thirty-three years, spending his life in the active duties 
of his position, yet finding time to write prolifically. The follow- 
ing letter is an excellent example of a spontaneous overflow of 
spirits and genuine, unaffected good-humor. 

Charles Kingsley to Mr. Wood 

Eversley, August 5, 1842 
Peter: 

Whether in the glaring saloons of Almack^s, or 
making love in the equestrian stateliness of the park, 
or the luxurious recumbency of the ottoman, whether 
breakfasting at one, or going to bed at three, thou art 
still Peter, the beloved of my youth, the staff of my 
academic days, the regret of my parochial retirement! 
— Peter! I am alone! Around me are the everlasting 
hills, and the everlasting bores of the country! My 
parish is peculiar for nothing but want of houses and 
abundance of peat bogs; my parishioners remarkable 
only for aversion to education, and a predilection for 
fat bacon. I am wasting my sweetness on the desert 
air — I sa}^ my sweetness, for I have given up smoking, 
and smell no more. Oh, Peter, Peter, come down and 
see me! Oh that I could behold your head towering 
above the fir-trees that surround my lonely dwelling. 
Take pity on me! I am ^'like a kitten in the washhouse 

242 



CHARLES KINGSLEY 243 

copper with the Hd on!'' And, Peter, prevail on some 
of your friends here to give me a day's trout-fishing, 
for my hand is getting out of practice. But, Peter, I 
am, considering the oscillations and perplex circum- 
gurgitations of this piece-meal world, an improved 
man. I am much more happy, much more comfort- 
able, reading, thinking, and doing my duty — much 
more than ever I did before in my life. Therefore I 
am not discontented with my situation or regretful 
that I buried my first-class in a country curacy, like 
the girl who shut herself up in a band-box on her wed- 
ding night (vide Rogers's ''Italy.") ^ And my lamenta- 
tions are not general (for I do not want an inundation 
of the froth and tidewash of Babylon the Great), but 
particular, being solely excited by want of thee, oh 
Peter, who are very pleasant to me, and wouldst be 
more so if thou wouldst come and eat my mutton, and 
drink my wine, and admire my sermons, some Sunday 
at Eversley. 

Your faithful friend, 

Boanerges Roar-at-the-Clods 



XXXII 

Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) was the famous son of a famous 
father, Dr. Thomas Arnold of Rugby. He was a poet, literary 
critic, and inspector of schools, who made substantial contribu- 
tions to the history and literature of education in the Victorian 
Age. He was a broad-shouldered, manly Englishman, sun-burned 
and wind-worn, who loved the English country and was genuinely 
delighted with the appearance of the daffodils in spring. His let- 
ters are lucid, hearty, and wholesome; they breathe the freshness 
of out-door life. His life was full of exacting demands — examining 
teachers, inspecting schools, urging legislation for the improve- 
ment of educational conditions, writing essays and poems, and 
lecturing; yet his letters to his mother, his sister, his family, and 
friends are so voluminous that they constitute an excellent auto- 
biography. He and Edward Fitzgerald are in the front rank of 
EngUsh letter- writers of the nineteenth century. 

1. Matthew Arnold to Miss Arnold * 

CoBHAM, Sunday [May 25, 1879] 
My dearest Fan, 

Fanny Lucy is gone to church, and I am alone in the 
house. Geist finds me dull and has begged me to let 
him out into the garden; now he has had his bark at the 
thrushes, and I hear him pattering upstairs to bed, his 
invariable resource when he is bored or sorrowful. The 
girls are at Harrow, as you know. It has been a most 
beautiful day, and the foliage is almost all out, and now 

* From The Letters of Matthew Arnold. Copyright 1895, by the 
MacmiUan Company. 

244 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 245 

in a day or two we shall have the May and the Chestnut 
blossom. I have never known the birds so rich and 
strong in their singing; I had two blackbirds and three 
thrushes running about together on the grass under my 
window as I was getting up yesterday, and a stockdove, 
has built her nest in the leaning ivied fir-tree which you 
will remember, between the house and the stables. So 
there is plenty of music, and the cuckoo comes in amidst 
it all. I am told by the natives that the nightingale 
used always to build in the shrubberies of the cottage, 
but she has given up that good habit; however, all 
around us the nightingales positively swarm. We dined 
at Effingham last night, and twice as we drove home the 
man stopped to call our attention to the chorus of 
nightingales. At one place, a thicket just before enter- 
ing upon Effingham Common, they were almost mad- 
deningly beautiful. It is a great loss to the North and 
the South-west of England not to have them; their 
extraordinary effectiveness is shown by even the poor 
people being so much interested about them and always 
knowing their habits and haunts. I should like to have 
you here for the cowslips and the nightingales; and it 
really must be arranged next year, if we live. The effect 
of reading so much of Wordsworth lately has been to 
make me feel more keenly than usual the beauty of the 
common incidents of the natural year, and I am sure 
that is a good thing. I have got a week before me which 
I don't much care about; three dinners in London, and 
I am to be taken to the Derby ^ by George Smith. He 
offered to take me and show me the whole thing, and 



246 SELECTED LETTERS 

it seems absurd never to have seen such a famous sight, 
but at present I look forward to the day as a boring 
one, and wish it was over. I think about the Irish 
University Question ^ I have effected some real good. 
You saw Lowe's speech, and Sir Louis Mallet told me 
that Bright was dining with him the other night and said 
there was not a word of any argument for the Catholics 
which did not carry him thoroughly along with it. 
Now good-bye, my dearest Fan; how I wish we had you 
here with us. 

Your ever most affectionate, 

M. A. 

2. Matthew Arnold to his younger daughter 

Richmond, December 19, 1883 
My darling Nelly, 

I must write to you from the capital of the Southern 
States, and the farthest point south that I shall reach. 
I left New York the day before yesterday in frost, with 
snow on the ground; snow lay all the way to Washing- 
ton, though there it became less. At Washington I 
lectured, and I send you a cutting with a characteristic 
account of the lecture. This sort of thing appears 
every day. It is so common that one does not think of 
cutting it out and sending it, but I got this as I was 
getting into the train yesterday, and kept it for you. I 
started from Washington yesterday about eleven, and 
after we crossed the Potomac the snow disappeared 
altogether, the sun came out quite hot, and we had a 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 247 

beautiful journey along the great inlets of the magnifi- 
cent Chesapeake Bay for the first part, and then 
through a woody country afterwards, where was the 
hardest fighting during the war between the North and 
South. I passed Fredericksburg, where a great battle 
was, in which Stonewall Jackson was mortally wounded. 
At Washington I had a letter and a telegram from a 
General Anderson, asking me to stay with him at Rich- 
mond; I accepted, hearing that the hotels at Richmond 
were bad. At the station was a gentlemanlike, erect old 
man with a white moustache, and an open carriage and 
pair. We drove through the rather ragged streets of 
Richmond — a city of 70,000 people, which suffered ter- 
ribly in the war, but is now recovering. Imagine my 
delight after the poverty of New England winter vege- 
tation, of which you can form no idea, — not a laurel, 
not a holly — to find the magnolia growing, a standard 
tree, in the gardens before the Richmond houses. There 
was the horse-chestnut too, which I have never seen in 
the North, and fine planes. We drove to a capital house 
standing alone, with a large garden behind it; here I 
found Mrs. Anderson. I was most kindly received. 
Virginia, of which Richmond is the capital, was colon- 
ised not by Puritans, but by the English gentry, and the 
liking for England and its ways, and for the better sort 
of English people, has never failed. Mrs. Anderson has 
been an extremely pretty woman; her father was a great 
planter, who lived in an immense house in the country, 
with at least a hundred servants, I am told, — all blacks. 
She had three brothers in the Confederate Army, two 



248 SELECTED LETTERS 

of them generals and one a colonel; the colonel and one 
of the generals were killed. It was getting dark, but she 
took me out for a drive to show me the view of the city 
with the James River bending through it, and sending 
up a beautiful sound from its rapids — no trout though, 
tell Dick. But my great pleasure was the Cemetery, 
where is a great pyramid over the common soldiers of 
the Confederate Army who fell in the war; but the 
beauty of the garden is in its dells and trees — such 
magnohas, such red-berried hollies, such oaks! It was 
dark when we got home, but I found callers, and then 
dressed with a good fire in my room, which even here 
one is glad of. There was a party at dinner, the cloth 
drawn after dinner in the old English fashion, and ex- 
cellent Madiera; then we went to the lecture in a tumble- 
down old hall, but it did very well, as I was sure it would 
hold. My agents were against my coming here, and 
said I would have no audience, but I had all the ^^old 
families, ^^ who in general do not go to lectures; one 
gentleman came in twenty miles on an engine to hear 
me. Then I was taken to a ball by Mrs. Anderson, 
that I might see their beauties; I saw a good many 
pretty people, and one very pretty; also I was introduced 
to Miss Stonewall Jackson and her mother. We came 
back here, and I went to bed after hearing much about 
the war. I am asked to go down and stay at a coimtry 
house near the sea to shoot duck, and at another up the 
country to shoot deer, but I must return to the North 
and my lecturing. I am going to drive about here this 
forenoon to see the town. To-morrow I lecture at 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 249 

Baltimore, and next morning join mama and Lucy at 
Washington. Lucy has been having a good time at 
New York. Kiss Dick for me, and speak very, very 
kindly to a certain pair of boys. Miss Nelly. Tell them 
poor old master has broken one of his few remaining 
front teeth in trying to peel an orange — a great loss. I 
expect to like Washington, where we stay over Christ- 
mas Day; then we go to Philadelphia. Remember me 
to Eliza and Jane. And now, my dearest, dearest child, 
I must stop. 

Your own loving. 
Papa 



XXXIII 

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895) early manifested that 
quick, eager mind which made him later one of the greatest Eng- 
lish scientists. In 1850 he wrote to his sister, ''I will leave my mark 



somewhere, and it shall be clear and distinct |T. H. H.. his mark. 
and free from the abominable blur of cant, humbug, and seK- 
seeking which surrounds everything in the present world." 

Spencer, Tyndall, Darwin, Haeckel, and Dr. Anton Dohrn, 
the founder of the Marine Biological Station at Naples, were his 
closest friends. He was a versatile and voluminous letter- writer, 
even taking the time from his scientific researches to print a 
letter to his little grandson. One of his most unique letters was 
written to his daughter, Mrs. John Collier, the wife of the artist. 

1. Thomas Huxley to John Tyndall 

Hotel De Grande Bretagne, Naples, 

March 31, 1872 
My dear Tyndall, 

Your very welcome letter did not reach me until the 
18th of March, when I returned to Cairo from my 
expedition to Assouan. Like Johnny Gilpin,^ I '^little 
thought, when I set out, of running such a rig;'' but 
while at Cairo I fell in with Ossory of the Athenaeum, 
and a very pleasant fellow, Charles Ellis, who had taken 
a dahabieh,^ and were about to start up the Nile. They 
invited me to take possession of a vacant third cabin, 
and I accepted their hospitality, with the intention of 
going as far as Thebes and returning on my own hook. 

250 



THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 251 

But when we got to Thebes I found there was no getting 
away again without much more exposure and fatigue 
than I felt justified in facing just then, and as my friends 
showed no disposition to be rid of me, I stuck to the 
boat, and only left them on the return voyage at Rodu, 
which is the terminus of the railway, about 150 miles 
from Cairo. 

We had an unusually quick journey, as I was little 
more than a month away from Cairo, and as my com- 
panions made themselves very agreeable, it was very 
pleasant. I was not particularly well at first, but by 
degrees the utter rest of this '^always afternoon^' sort 
of life did its work, and I am as well and vigorous now as 
ever I was in my life. 

Egypt interested me profoundly, but I must reserve 
the tale of all I did and saw there for word of mouth. 
From Alexandria I went to Messina, and thence made 
an excursion along the lovely Sicilian coast to Catania 
and Etna. The old giant was half-covered with snow, 
and this fact, which would have tempted you to go to 
the top, stopped me. But I went to the Val del Bove, 
whence all the great lava streams have flowed for the 
last two centuries, and feasted my eyes with its rugged 
grandeur. From Messina I came on here, and had the 
great good fortune to find Vesuvius in eruption. Before 
this fact the vision of good Bence Jones forbidding much 
exertion vanished into thin air, and on Thursday up I 
went in company with Ray Lankester and my friend 
Dohrn's father, Dohrn himself being unluckily away. 
We had a glorious day, and did not descend till late at 



252 SELECTED LETTERS 

night. The great crater was not very active, and con- 
tented itself with throwing out great clouds of steam 
and volleys of red-hot stones now and then. These were 
thrown towards the south-west side of the cone, so that 
it was practicable to walk all round the northern and 
eastern lip, and look down into the Hell Gate. I wished 
you were there to enjoy the sight as much as I did. No 
lava was issuing from the great crater, but on the north 
side of this, a little way below the top, an independent 
cone had established itself as the most charming little 
pocket-volcano imaginable. It could not have been 
more than one hundred feet high, and at the top was a 
crater not more than six or seven feet across. Out of 
this, with a noise exactly resembling a blast furnace 
and a slowly-working high pressure steam engine com- 
bined, issued a violent torrent of steam and fragments 
of semi-fluid lava as big as one^s fist, and sometimes 
bigger. These shot up sometimes as much as one hun- 
dred feet, and then fell down on the sides of the little 
crater, which could be approached within fifty feet 
without any danger. As darkness set in, the spectacle 
was most strange. The fiery stream found a lurid re- 
flection in the slowly-drifting steam cloud, which over- 
hung it, while the red-hot stones which shot through 
the cloud shone strangely beside the quiet stars in a 
moonless sky. 

Not from the top of this cinder cone, but from its side, 
a couple of hundred feet down, a stream of lava issued. 
At first it was not more than a couple of feet wide, but 
whether from receiving accessions or merely from the 



THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 253 

different form of slope, it got wider on its journey down 
to the Atrio del Cavallo, a thousand feet below. The 
slope immediately below the exit must have been near 
fifty, but the lava did not flow quicker than very thick 
treacle would do under hke circumstances. And there 
was plenty of freshly cooled lava streams about, inclined 
at angles far greater than those which that learned 
Academician, Elie de Beaumont,^ declared to be possible. 
Naturally I was ashamed of these impertinent lava cur- 
rents, and felt inclined to call them ^^ Laves mous- 
senses. '^ ^ 

Courage, my friend, behold land! I know you love 
my handwriting. I am off to Rome to-day, and this 
day-week, if all goes well, I shall be under my own roof- 
tree again. In fact I hope to reach London on Saturday 
evening. It will be jolly to see your face again. 

Ever yours faithfully, 

T. H. Huxley 

2. Thomas Huxley to his daughter 

Athenaeum Club, May 17, 1892 
Dearest Babs, 
As I was going along upper Thames Street just now, 

primary parenthesis 

I saw between Nos. 170 and 211 (but you would like to 
know what I was going along that odorous street for. 
Well, it was to enquire how the pen with which I am 

2nd p. 

now writing — (you see it is a new fangled fountain pen, 
warranted to cure the worst writing and always spell 



254 SELECTED LETTERS 

2nd p. 

properly) — works, because it would not work properly 
this morning. And the nice young woman who took 

3rd p. 3rd p. 

it from me — (as who should say you old foodie !) inked 

4th p. 

her own fingers enormously (which I told her I was 

4th p. 

pleased they were her fingers rather than mine) — But 

5th p. 

she only smole. (Close by was another shop where they 

6 or 7 p. n. p. 

sold hose) — (india rubber, not knitted) — (and warranted 
to let water through, not keep it out) ; and I asked for 
a garden syringe, thinking such things likely to be kept 
by hosiers of that sort — and they said they had not any, 

n. n. p. 

but found they had a remnant cheap (price 3s.) which 

end of pp. 

is less than many people pay for the other hosiers' hose) 
a doorpost at the side of the doorway of some place of 
business with this remarkable notice: Ruling Girls 
Wanted. 

Don't you think you had better apply at once? Jack 
will give you a character, I am sure, on the side of the 
art of ruling, and I will speak for the science — also of 
hereditary (on mother's side) instinct. 

Well, I am not sure about the pen yet — but there is 

no room for any more. 

Ever your loving 

Dad 

Epistolary composition on the model of a Gladstonian 
speech to a deputation on women's suffrage. 



THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 255 

3. Thomas Huxley to John Tyndall 

4 Marlborough Place, Jan. 11, 1875 
My dear old Shylock/ 

My argosies have come in, and here is all that was 
written in the bond! If you want the pound of flesh 
too, you know it is at your service, and my Portia 
won't raise that pettifogging objection to shedding a 
little blood into the bargain, which that other one dido 

Ever yours faithfully, 

T« H. Huxley 



XXXIV 

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898), better known as 
"Lewis Carroll," was one of eleven children. He studied at 
Rugby and Oxford, where he distinguished himself in mathe- 
matics. As a student at Oxford, he manifested an affection for 
the children of the masters and tutors and often told stories to 
them. Although a clergyman and mathematician of distinction, 
his fame probably rests on Alice in Wonderland and Through the 
Looking Glass. He had a large circle of friends among children, 
and his correspondence with them was extensive. 

Lewis Carroll to Adelaide 

Christ Church, Oxford, 

March 8, 1880 
My dear Ada, — 

(Isn^t that your short name? '^Adelaide'' is all very 
well, but you see when one is dreadfully busy, one 
hasn't time to write such long words — particularly 
when it takes one half an hour to remember how to 
spell it — and even then one has to go and get a diction- 
ary to see if one has spelt it right, and of course the 
dictionary is in another room, at the top of a high book- 
case — where it has been for months and months and 
has got all covered with dust — so one has got to get a 
duster first of all, and nearly choke oneself in dusting 
it — and when one has made out at last which is diction- 
ary and which is dust, even then there's the job of 
remembering which end of the alphabet '^A'' comes — 

256 



CHARLES LUTWIDGE DODGSON 257 

for one feels pretty certain it isn^t in the middle — then 
one has to go and wash one's hands before turning 
over the leaves — for they Ve got so thick with dust one 
hardly knows them by sight — and as likely as not, the 
soap is lost, and the jug is empty; and there's no towel, 
and one has to spend hours and hours in finding things 
— and perhaps after all one has to go off to the shop 
to buy a new cake of soap — so, with all this bother, I 
hope you won't mind my writing it short and saying, 
'^My dear Ada.") You said in your last letter you 
would like a likeness of me : so here it is, and I hope you 
will like it — I won't forget to call the next time but 
one I'm in Wallington. 

Your very affectionate friend, 

Lewis Carroll 



XXXV 

With the publication of Treasure Island or The Sea-Cook in 
book form, Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) became for the 
first time a popular writer. Almost every one offers the same 
testimony as the New Zealand boy who, when asked if he had 
read Treasure Island, said, ''Every boy's read Treasure Island. 
I've read it four times." Dr. Bakewell wrote to Stevenson, telling 
him of the frank compliment, and warning him against the danger 
of overwork. The following letter is Stevenson's reply. The last 
four years of Stevenson's life were spent in Vailima, Samoa, where 
he showed himself not only a man of letters, but an employer of 
labor, an active planter, and a kind island chieftain. The best 
account of his life in Samoa is his Vailima Letters, edited by Sid- 
ney Colvin. It is hard to beUeve that the time will ever come 
when Stevenson will not be greatly beloved by both young and 
old. 

1. Robert Louis Stevenson to Dr. Bakewell 

Vailima, August 7, 1894 
Dear Dr. Bakewell, 

I am not more than human. I am more human than 
is wholly convenient and your anecdote was welcome. 
What you say about unwilling work, my dear Sir, is a 
consideration always present with me, and yet not easy 
to give its due weight to. You grow gradually into a 
certain income; without spending a penny more, with 
the same sense of restriction as before when you pain- 
fully scraped two hundred a year together, you find 
you have spent, and you cannot well stop spending, a 
far larger sum; and this expense can only be supported 

258 



ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 259 

by a certain profession. However, I am off work this 
month and occupy myself instead in w^eeding my cacao, 
papa chases,^ and the Hke. I may tell you my average 
of work in favorable circumstances is far greater than 
you suppose; from six o^clock till eleven at least, and 
often till twelve, and again in the afternoon from two 
to four. My hand is quite destroyed as you may per- 
ceive to-day — to an unusual extent. I can sometimes 
write a decent fist still; but I have just returned 
with my arms all stung from three hours' work in the 
cacao. 



XXXVI 

Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) escapes classification. He was 
born in the Ionian Isles of English and Greek parentage and 
lived in England, Cincinnati, New Orleans, and Japan. After 
his marriage with a Japanese woman, he became a naturaHzed 
Japanese citizen. He was oriental in temperament, and called 
New York ^'that frightful cyclone of electricity and machinery.'' 
The recipients of his letters were fortunate, for he lavished on 
them the wealth of his poetical imagination and rich experience. 
His letters to Mrs. Elizabeth Bisland Wetmore, to Mr. H. E. 
Krehbiel, the well-known musical critic, and to Mr. Page M. 
Baker, former editor of the New Orleans Times-Democrat , have a 
permanent place in the literature of letters. The following 
selections from his correspondence were addressed to his best 
friend, Henry Watkin of Cincinnati, an Englishman of broad 
culture and liberality of views, who had a printing shop. Most 
of the letters are signed ^'The Raven.'' Sometimes instead of 
the name, there is a sketch of the raven. Hearn frequently 
illustrated the text of his post cards and letters with sketches. 
His best known book is Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, 

1. Lafcadio Hearn to Henry Watkin * 

Memphis, Oct. 31, 1877 
Dear Old Dad : 

I am writing in a great big, dreary room of this great, 
dreary house. It overlooks the Mississippi. I hear the 
puffing and the panting of the cotton boats and the 
deep calls of the river traffic; but I neither hear nor see 

* Copyright, 1906, by Brentano's. 
260 



LAFCADIO HEARN 261 

the Thompson Dean. She will not be here this week, 
I am afraid, as she only left New Orleans to-day. 

My room is carpetless and much larger than your 
office. Old blocked-up stairways come up here and 
there through the floor or down through the ceiling, 
and then suddenly disappear. There is a great red 
daub on one wall as though made by a bloody hand 
when somebody was staggering down the stairway. 
There are only a few panes of glass in the windows. 
I am the first tenant of the room for fifteen years. 
Spiders are busy spinning their dusty tapestries in 
every corner, and between the bannisters of the old 
stairways. The planks of the floor are sprung, and when 
I walk along the room at night it sounds as though 
Something or Somebody was following me in the dark. 
And then being in the third story makes it much more 
ghostly. 

I had hard work to get a washstand and towel put 
in this great, dreary room; for the landlord had not 
washed his face for more than a quarter of a century, 
and regarded washing as an expensive luxury. At 
last I succeeded with the assistance of the barkeeper, 
who has taken a liking to me. 

Perhaps you have seen by the paper that General 
N. B. Forrest ^ died here night before last. To-day they 
are burying him. I see troops of men in grey uniforms 
parading the streets, and the business of the city is 
suspended in honour of the dead. And they are firing 
weary, dreary minute guns. 

I am terribly tired of this dirty, dusty, ugly town, — 



262 SELECTED LETTERS 

a city only forty years old, but looking old as the ragged, 
fissured bluffs on which it stands. It is full of great 
houses, which were once grand, but are now as waste 
and dreary within, and without, as the huge building 
in which I am lodging for the sum of twenty-five cents 
a night. I am obliged to leave my things in the bar- 
keeper's care at night for fear of their being stolen; and 
he thinks me a little reckless because I sleep with 
my money under my pillow. You see the doors of my 
room — there are three of them — lock badly. They are 
ringing those dead bells every moment, — it is a very 
unpleasant sound. I suppose you will not laugh if I 
tell you that I have been crying a good deal of nights, — 
just like I used to do when a college boy returned from 
vacation. It is a lonely feeling, this of finding oneself 
alone in a strange city, where you never meet a face 
that you know; and when all the faces you did know 
seem to have been dead faces, disappeared for an in- 
definite time. I have not travelled enough the last 
years, I suppose: it does not do to become attached 
insensibly to places and persons. I suppose you have 
had some postal cards from me; and you are be- 
ginning to think I am writing quite often. I suppose 
I am, and 3^ou know the reason why; and perhaps you 
are thinking to yourself: ^^He feels a little blue now, 
and is accordingly very affectionate, &c.; but by and 
by he will be quite forgetful, and perhaps will not write 
so often as at present.'' 

Well, I suppose you are right, I live in and by ex- 
tremes and am on an extreme now. I write extremely 



LAFCADIO HEARN 263 

often, because I feel alone and extremely alone. By 
and by, if I get well, I shall write only by weeks; and 
with time perhaps only by months; and when at last 
comes the rush of business and busy newspaper work, 
only by years,^intil the times and places of old friend- 
ship are forgotton, and old faces have become dim as 
dreams, and these httle spider-threads of attachments 
will finally yield to the long strain of a thousand miles. 

2. Lafcadio Hearn to Henry Watkin 

438 West 57th Street, New York, 1887 
Dear Old Man : 

A delightful trip brought me safe and sound to New 
York, where my dear friend Krehbiel was waiting to 
take me to his cosy home. I cannot tell you how much 
our Uttle meeting delighted me, or how much I re- 
gretted to depart so soon, or how differently I regarded 
our old friendship from my old way of looking at it. 
I was too young, too foolish, and too selfish to know you 
as you are, when we used to be together. Ten years 
made little exterior change in me, but a great deal of 
heart-change; and I saw you as you are, — noble and 
true and frank and generous, and felt I loved you more 
than I ever did before; felt also how much I owed you, 
and will alwa3^s owe you, — and understood how much 
allowance you had made for all my horrid, foolish ways 
when I used to be with you. Well, I am sure to see you 
again. 

I am having one of the most delightful holidays here 



264 SELECTED LETTERS 

I ever had in my life; and I expect to stay a few weeks. 
If it were not for the terrible winters, I should like to 
live in New York. Some day I suppose I shall have to 
spend a good deal of my time here. The houses eleven 
stories high, that seem trying to climb into the moon, — 
the tremendous streets and roads, — the cascading thun- 
der of the awful torrent of life, — the sense of wealth- 
force and mind power that oppresses the stranger 
here, — all these form so colossal a contrast with the 
inert and warmly coloured Southern life that I know not 
how to express my impression. I can only think that 
I have found superb material for a future story, in 
which the influence of New York on a. Southern mind 
may be described. Well, new as these things may seem 
to me, they are, no doubt, old and uninteresting to 
you, — so that I shall not bore you with my impressions. 
I will look forward to our next meeting, when, during 
a longer stay in Cincinnati, I can tell you such little 
experiences of my trip as may please you. I want to 
get into that dear little shop of yours again. I dreamed 
of it the other night, and heard the ticking of the old 
clock like a man's feet treading on pavement far away; 
and I saw the Sphinx, with the mother and child in her 
arms, move her monstrous head, and observe: '^The 
sky of New York is grey!'' 

When I woke up it was grey^ and it remained grey 
until to-day. Even now it is not like our summer blue. 
It looks higher and paler and colder. We are nearer 
to God in the South, just as we are nearer to Death 
in that terrible and splendid heat of the Gulf Coast. 



LAFCADIO HEARN 265 

When I write God, of course I mean only the World- 
Soul, the mighty and sweetest life of Nature, the great 
Blue Ghost, the Holy Ghost which fills planets and 
hearts with beauty. 

Believe me, Dear Old Dad, 
Affectionately, your son, 

Lafcadio Hearn 

3. Lafcadio Hearn to Henry Watkin 

YoKOHOMA, April 25, 1890 
Dear Old Dad: 

I was very happy to feel that your dear heart thought 
about me; I also have often found myself dreaming of 
you. I arrived here, by way of Canada and Vancouver, 
after passing some years in the West Indies. I think 
I shall stay here for some years. I have not been 
getting rich, — quite the contrary; but I am at least pre- 
paring a foundation for ultimate independence, — if 
I keep my health. It is very good now, but I have 
many gray hairs, and I shall be next June forty years 
old. 

I trust to make enough in a year or two to realize 
my dream of a home in the West Indies; if I succeed, 
I must try to coax you to come along, and dream life 
away quietly where all is sun and beauty. But 
no one ever lived who seemed more a creature of cir- 
cumstances than I; I drift with various forces in the 
direction of the least resistance, — resolve to love noth- 
ing, and love always too much for my own peace of 



266 SELECTED LETTERS 

mind, — places, things, and persons, and lo! presto! 
everything is swept away, and becomes a dream, — like 
life itself. 

Perhaps there will be a great awakening; and each 
will cease to be an Ego, but an All, and will know the 
divinity of Man by seeing, as the veil falls, himself in 
each and all. 

Here I am in the land of dreams, — surrounded by 
strange gods. I seem to have known and loved them 
somewhere before: I burn incense before them. I pass 
much of my time in the temples, trying to see into 
the heart of this mysterious people. In order to do so 
I have to blend with them and become a part of them. 
It is not easy. But I hope to learn the language; and 
if I do not, in spite of myself, settle here, you will see 
me again. If you do not, I shall be under big trees in 
some old Buddhist cemetery, with six lathes above me, 
inscribed with prayers in an unknown tongue, and a 
queerly carved monument typifying those five elements 
into w^hich we are supposed to melt away. I trust all 
is well with you, dear old Dad. Write me when it will 
not pain your eyes. Tell me all you can about your- 
self. Be sure that I shall always remember you; and 
that my love goes to you. 

Lafcadio Hearn 

I could tell you so much to make you laugh if you 
were here; and to hear you laugh again would make 
me very happy. 



NOTES 

24, 1. Louvre. An immense palace in Paris. It was the resi- 
dence of several kings, but is now occupied by a museum of arts 
and by public offices. 

2. The Kmg»s. Louis XIV (1643-1715). The king^s eldest 
brother was given the title of Monsieur; his wife, that of Madame; 
and his eldest daughter. Mademoiselle. The Duchess of Mont- 
pensier was the daughter of Prince Gaston of Orleans, who was 
brother of Louis XIII (1610-1643) and son of Henri IV. At 
first she was expected to marry Louis XIV; later her marriage 
with Prince Philippe of Orleans, brother of Louis XIV, ^'the late 
Monsieur," was discussed. 

25, 1. Gotirville. A man of business, in the service of Conde. 
27, 1. Madame de Chauhies. The wife of the governor of 

Brittany. 

2. Brittany Chambers. Besides the parliament in Paris, 
there were parliaments in the provinces. They had no real 
legislative power, being high courts of justice. 

31, 1. Non cuicunque datum est habere Nasam. It is not 
given to every one to have a nose. 

34, 1. Nimeguen. A town in the Netherlands. 

38, 1. Grand Vizier. A high executive officer of various Mo- 
hammedan countries, especially of the Turkish empire. 

39, 1. Effendi. A Turkish title of respect, applied especially 
to a state official or a man of learning, but often used simply as 
the courtesy title of a gentleman. 

40, 1. Kiy^ya. Lieutenant deputy to the Grand Vizier. 

42, 1. Apelles. A famous Greek painter who lived about 
B. C. 330. 

43, 1. Soucoupes. Saucers. 

48, 1. Literae Humaniores. The branches of poKte learning, 
especially the ancient classics; belles-lettres. 

267 



268 NOTES 

2. Operam et oleum (perdere). To lose one's time and trouble; 
to spend them in vain. Literally, to lose one's work and midnight 
oil. 

49, 1. Port Royal. Port Royal des Champs, about fifteen 
miles from Paris, was the residence of religious and scholarly 
men who had withdrawn from the world to devote themselves 
to pious exercises, study, and the education of youth. Their 
contributions to classical learning were invaluable. 

50, 1. Le vainqueur du vainqueur de la terra. The conqueror 
of the conqueror of the earth. 

53, 1. Tom Davies (1712?-1785). A bookseller, frequently 
mentioned in Boswell's Johnson. He was socially agreeable, 
and on friendly terms with Johnson, Goldsmith, Garrick, and 
others of the Literary Club. 

2. Fores. See Macbeth I, iii, 42 and following. For Bimam 
Wood see Macbeth^ IV, i, 110 and following. 

54, 1. The Rambler. The title of Johnson's periodical is here 
applied to him. The first number of The Rambler appeared on 
Tuesday, March 20, 1750, and it was issued regularly on Tues- 
day and Saturday until March 14, 1752. It was a successful 
imitation of The Spectator. 

2. Under my battlements. See Macbeth, I, v, 43. 

58, 1. Ceres. In Roman mythology, the goddess of growing 
vegetation. Her feast, the Cerealia, was celebrated on April 19. 

63, 1. Strephon. A lovesick shepherd in Sir Philip Sidney's 
Arcadia; hence, any lovesick person. 

65, 1. Close. A narrow passage or entry leading from a street 
to a court and the houses within, or to the common stair of tene- 
ments. 

67, 1. Robert Dodsley (1703-1764). A poet, dramatist, and 
bookseller, who published some of the works of Goldsmith and 
Johnson. 

2. Solecisms. A term derived from the Soloi, Athenian colon- 
ists in Cilicia, who corrupted the Attic dialect; an ungrammatical 
combination of words in a sentence. 

69, 1. Loo. A game played for stakes with three cards, or 



NOTES 269 

sometimes five, dealt to each player from a full pack. When five 
cards are used, the highest is generally the knave of clubs, called 
pam; with three, the cards rank as in whist. 

70, 1. Sir John Fielding (d. 1780). A haK-brother of Henry 
Fielding, the novelist; he was a magistrate. 

2. Death without Clergy. To undergo the sentence of death, 
without the privilege of being attended by a clergyman. 

3. Old Bailey. A court of justice in London. 

79, 1. Versailles. A town in northern France, twelve miles 
from Paris, famous for the palace built by Louis XIV, which now 
serves as a museum and art gallery. The king to whom Franklin 
was presented was Louis XV (1715-1774). 

2. A boire pour le Roi ... la Reine. A drink for the king 
. . . the queen. 

81, 1. Chair. A portable chair or covered vehicle for carrying 
a single person, usually borne on poles by two men. It was 
formerly called ^' Sedan chair '^ from Sedan, France, where it was 
first used. 

82, 1. Dauphiness. The wife of the heir to the French crown. 
2. Perruquier. A maker of perukes, or wigs. 

85, 1. Temple. A kinsman of Franklin^s who served as his 
secretary. Ben was another young kinsman. 

88, 1. The Line. The equator, or equinoctial line. 

90, 1. En bequille, a la negligee. Styles of hair-dressing. 

91, 1. Ortolan. A European bird, considered a table delicacy. 
The lamprey is a species of eel, esteemed by some as food. 

2. Salamis. An island of Greece, in the ^Egean Sea, famous for 
a naval battle in the Graeco-Persian War, in B. C 480. 

92, 1. The Coronation. That of George III (1760-1820). 
2. Haut pas. A raised floor or platform; a dais. 

93, 1. Paten. The plate, often of precious metal, on which 
the bread is consecrated and from which it is given in the Com- 
munion; or the plate on which the Host is placed during the Mass. 

95, 1. Barons of the Cinque Ports. Originally there were five 
towns — Hastings, Romney, Hythe, Dover, and Sandwich — incor- 
porated for the purpose of defending the southern seaboard of 



270 NOTES 

England, in the lack of a regular navy. Other towns were added 
later. Up to the reign of Henry VII they had to furnish the 
crown with nearly all the ships and men needed for the state. 
In return for their services, the ports and their representatives 
enjoyed extensive privileges. 

96, 1. Pa. William Palgrave, of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. 

97, 1. The peace. The treaty of Aix-la-chapelle (Oct., 1748), 
which ended the war of the Austrian succession. 

98, 1. Ranelagh. Formerly a popular resort by the Thames 
in Chelsea, London. In 1690 Richard, Earl of Ranelagh, built 
a mansion and laid out fine gardens, which, in 1742, became a 
proprietary place of entertainment. A building was erected for 
concerts, and the gardens were a favorite resort of fashionable 
society. Here were held balls, masquerades, exhibitions of fire- 
works, regattas, and other forms of amusement. 

2. Masks. People wearing masks. Women of fashion of 
the eighteenth century wore masks for protection and dis- 
guise. 

3. Scaramouches. Buffoons. 

4. Japan. Japanese lacquered ware. 

5. Auriculas. An auricula is a variety of primrose. 

100, 1. Rule a Wife and Have a Wife. A play by Beaumont 
and Fletcher. 

103, 1. Titian. A famous Venetian painter (1477-1576). 

2. Attila. King of the Huns (406?-453). The wall-paper 
was decorated with pictures suggesting the experiences of Attila 
and his army. 

104, 1. Chiaro-scuro. The style of pictorial art that employs 
only light and shade, omitting the various colors; black and 
white. 

106, 1. New reign. That of George III (1760-1820). 

2. Medecin malgre lui. A Doctor in Spite of Himself, a comedy 
by Moliere. 

106, 1. Adonis. A style of wig worn in the eighteenth cen- 
tury. 

110, 1. Homer. Cowper translated Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, 



NOTES 271 

111, 1. Phaeton. The sun-god, Hehos. He induced his 
father, Apollo, to permit him for one day to drive the chariot 
of the sun; with his lack of skill, he would have set the world 
on fire, had he not been struck down with a thunderbolt by 
Zeus. 

113, 1. The Tower. The Tower of London, originally a 
fortress, a royal palace, and a prison for political offenders. It 
is now used as an arsenal and repository of objects of public 
interest. 

121, 1. Dan to Beersheba. Two cities in the northern and 
southern extremities of the Holy Land. The distance between 
them was considered, in Biblical times, a long journey. 

122, 1. Miss Edgeworth. Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849), 
a novelist; she went to Edgeworthstown, Ireland, in 1782. In 
1823, she visited Scott at Abbotsford, and he returned her visit 
in 1825. Her novel. Castle Rack-rent, contains vigorous descrip- 
tions of Irish character. 

129, 1. Covent Garden. A square which was once the site 
of a convent (whence the name) ; now the principal fruit, flower, 
and vegetable market of London. In the eighteenth century, 
there were many coffee-houses in its vicinity. 

2. Cheapening. To cheapen, to ask the price of; to bid, bar- 
gain, or chaffer for. Archaic. 

131, 1. Skiddaw. A mountain in central Cumberland, Eng- 
land. 

132, 1. Charles Lloyd. (1775-1839). The son of a Quaker 
banker and philanthropist, and the friend of Coleridge, Lamb, 
and De Quincey. 

134, 1. Benefice. In the church of England, a rectory, vic- 
arage, or curacy, bestowed by one in high authority. The 
holder of a benefice is often a non-resident, and the duties of 
the office are discharged by one of lower official rank. 

135, 1. Diogenes. A Greek Cynic philosopher (B. C. 412?- 
323?). According to tradition, he lived in a tub. 

2. Mandarinesses. A mandarin is a Chinese public officer of 
one of the nine grades entitled to wear a button on the hat. 



272 NOTES 

136, 1. Figurantes. A figurant is one who figures in any 
scene, without taking a prominent part. 

2. Euclid. A Greek geometrician who Hved about B. C. 300. 

137, 1. Astraea. In classical mythology, Astrsea was the 
goddess of justice, daughter of Zeus. She was the last of the 
divinities to leave the earth at the end of the Golden 
Age. 

138, 1. Shuts amain. A quotation from Milton^s Lycidas, 
1. 110. 

139, 1. Grub Street. A London street (now called Milton 
Street) described by Dr. Johnson as ''much inhabited by writers 
of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems, whence 
any mean production is called gruhstreet; petty and needy writers, 
or literary hacks." 

140, 1. Thetis. A Nereid, wife of Peleus and mother of Achil- 
les; she was a sea-nymph and an attendant on Neptune. 

141, 1. Hypochondriacal. Affected with hypochondria, a mor- 
bid depression of mind and spirits. 

2. Bastile. A castle or fortress in Paris, built in the four- 
teenth century, and used as a prison for political offenders. The 
populace stormed it, July 14, 1789, and demolished it. Lamb 
calls the invalid's room a Bastile. 

143, 1. The prince. Prince Demetri Ivanowitch Dolgorouki, 
attached to the Russian embassy at Madrid. 

153, 1. Alexander .... Bucephalus. A picture by Haydon, 
representing Alexander the Great and his horse. 

156, 1. Badly used. Haydon had many difficulties. He was 
not elected to the Royal Academy; his pictures were hung in 
the wrong rooms or refused a place altogether. He offended the 
authorities of the British Gallery, who refused to give a prize 
to his "Macbeth," when it clearly deserved it. 

162, 1. Bason. Napoleon constructed great docks or basins 
in Antwerp; one of them is now called the Little or Napoleon 
dock. 

2. Peter Paul Rubens. (1577-1640). A Flemish painter. 

3. Au fait. Literally, to the act or fact; skilled, expert. 



NOTES 273 

164, 1. Accursed affairs. Shelley had just been deprived of 
the custody of his children by the courts of England. 

166, 1. Accursed cause. Shelley dedicated his life to the 
cause of freedom, and tried to secure by his pamphlets, poems, 
and dramas political, religious, and social liberty for the English. 
He was heartily in sympathy with the ideals of the French Revo- 
lution, and keenly disappointed when democracy seemed to have 
been checked in its progress. This letter records his feeling of 
discouragement over the outlook in England. 

2. Circean Palace. The palace of Circe, who, in the Odyssey^ 
was a sorceress living on the island of CEaea. Those who visited 
her were first feasted and then by magic turned into beasts. 

168, 1. Pulvis ipecac, simplex. A medicinal powder, made 
from the root of a South American plant, largely used in medicine 
as an emetic. 

170, 1. Don Quixotes. Don Quixote was the hero of a cele- 
brated Spanish romance of the same name, written by Cervantes. 
Under the influence of books of chivalry, he felt himself called 
on to become an impossible knight-errant. 

171, 1. Meg Merrilies. A half-crazy gypsy and nurse in 
Scott^s Guy Mannering. She aids in the abduction of her 
charge, Harry, and loses her life in the effort to restore him. 

179, 1. John Carlyle. John and Alexander (Alick) Carlyle, 
brothers of Thomas Carlyle. Little Jane was a namesake and 
kinswoman of Jane Welsh Carlyle. 

181, 1. Soopit ower wi' her tails. Knocked over with her 
skirts. 

183, 1. Bit haddin' o' your ain. A place of your own. 

184, 1. Templand. The home of Jane Carlyle's grandparents 
in Scotland. 

186, 1. Spencer's heroine. Una, ^'a lovely ladie," the per- 
sonification of truth, in Spenser's F eerie Queene. 

2. Formerly. Hawthorne served in the custom-house at 
Boston, 1838-41. Subsequent to the date of this letter, he was 
surveyor of the port of Salem^ 1846-49^ and United States consul 
art Liverpool, 1853-57. 



274 NOTES 

193, 1. Wade Hampton. A cavalry commander in the Con- 
federate service in the Civil War, governor of South CaroUna, 
and United States senator. Benjamin Harvey Hill was the 
representative from Georgia to the Confederate Congress, and 
United States Senator, 1875-1876. 

198, 1. Rus, quando te aspiciam. Country, when shall I 
behold thee? 

200, 1. Mogadore. A fortified seaport city in Morocco, Africa, 
on the Atlantic coast; it was bombarded by the French, Aug. 16, 
1844. 

2. Titmarsh. A pen-name of Thackeray. 

201, 1. James Spedding (1808-1881). An Enghsh author, 
editor of the works of Bacon. 

2. Arcades ambo. Quoted from Virgil's Ecolgue 7, 4: Arcades 
amho, et cantare pares et respondere parati; both Arcadians, com- 
panions prepared to sing and to respond. 

204, 1. Die schone Fraulein ist krank. The pretty young lady 
is ill. 

206, 1. Squeers. The cruel and ignorant schoolmaster of 
Dotheboys Hall (Yorkshire) in Dickens's novel, Nicholas Nicklehy. 
Smike, Nicholas, and Fanny Squeers are characters in the same 
novel. 

209, 1. 'Creedy's. Macready, the actor, whose name was 
thus pronounced by one of Charles Dickens's little boys. 

213, 1. Bracebridge Hall. For a description see Irving's 
Bracehridge Hall. 

2. Boabdil. The last Moorish king of Granada. For further 
accounts of his life, see Irving's Conquest of Granada. 

3. Diedrich Knickerbocker. Washington Irving published 
in 1809 a burlesque history of New York, under the pen 'name of 
Diedrich Knickerbocker. 

215, 1. Lincoln's Inn Fields. The largest square n Lon- 
don. 

2. Cant. Dickens refers to the Christmas Carols by means of 
which he struck a blow at cant and hypocrisy and put new mean- 
ing into the Christmas season and its observance. 



NOTES 275 

3. Romeo. The story of the love of Romeo of the house of 
Montague for JuHet of the rival Capulet family is the subject 
of Shakespeare^s tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. 

217, 1. Bradbury and Evans. Proprietors of Punch, and 
publishers for Dickens and Thackeray. Dickens refers to them 
here as the firm to which he would address his letter. 

220, 1. Dolby. Dickens^s secretary and the business manager 
of his American lecture tour. 

222, 1. Arethusa. A nymph in Greek mythology. Accord- 
ing to Pausanias, Alpheus, a mighty hunter, was enamored of 
Arethusa, one of the retinue of Artemis; Arethusa fled to Ortygia 
near Syracuse, where she was changed into a spring. Alpheus, 
in the form of a river, made his way beneath the sea, and united 
his waters with those of the spring. 

223, 1. Sorrento. A town in the province of Naples, Italy, 
situated on the Bay of Naples; a favorite watering-place. 

224, 1. Warlock. A sorcerer, a wizard. 

226, 1. Trenton Falls. A series of picturesque cascades 
in West Canada Creek, Oneida County, New York, near 
Utica. 

231, 1. Cerealia. See note on Ceres, p. 268. 

232,1. Micawber. One of the principal characters in Dickens's 
David Copperfield, remarkable for his optimism and behef that 
^^ something will turn up.^' 

2. Caius Julius. (B. C. 100-44). A famous Roman general, 
statesman, orator, and writer. 

233, 1. Richard Henry Stoddard (1825-1903). An American 
poet and hterary critic. George Henry Boker (1823-1890) was 
an American poet, dramatist, and diplomatist. Bayard Taylor 
(1825-1378) was an American poet, traveler, writer of travels, 
translai or, and novelist. 

235, 1. Tithe-pig. A pig paid as a tithe, often the poorest in 
the htter. Lowell does not use the word seriously. 

2. Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). An eminent Swiss- 
French philosopher. He sent his five children to the Foundhng 
Asylum. 



276 NOTES 

236, 1. Lope de Vega (1562-1635). A Spanish dramatist 
and poet, and the founder of the Spanish theatre. 

2. Catorce versos dicen que es soneto. Fourteen hnes say 
that it is a sonnet. 

3. Petrarch (1304-1374). The great Italian poet and first 
true reviver of learning in mediaeval Europe. The most famous 
event in his history was his meeting Laura in 1327. It is uncer- 
tain who Laura was, but Petrarch loved her passionately and 
expressed his love in a series of sonnets. 

238, 1. Capital little book. The Story of a Bad Boy. 

239, 1. The Mysteries of Udolpho. A romance by Mrs. Rad- 
chffe, pubhshed in 1794. 

240, 1. Frau von Stein (1742-1827). A German lady of 
Weimar, noted for her friendship with Goethe. 

243, 1. Rogers's Italy. Samuel Rogers (1832-1898) was an 
English poet. His principal poems are ''Pleasures of Memory" 
and ''Italy." In Rogers's "Italy," an Italian bride hides herself 
and is imprisoned in a spring-locked trunk; the skeleton is found 
long afterward. 

245, 1. Derby. A race instituted by an Earl of Derby in 1786 
for three-year-old horses. It was run annually at Epsom, near 
London. 

246, 1. Irish University Question. Arnold was making great 
effort to secure the passage of the University Education, Ireland 
Bill. Catholics. See Arnold's article "Irish Catholicism and 
British Liberalism," in the Fortnightly Review, November, 1878. 

250, 1. Johnny Gilpin. William Cowper in 1785 published a 
ballad called "John Gilpin," from the name of its hero. 

2. Dahabieh, a house-boat used on the Nile. 

253, 1. Elie de Beaumont (1798-1874). A celebrated French 
geologist. 

2. Laves mousseuses. A frothy lava. 

255, 1. Shylock — Portia. In Shakespeare's Merchant of 
Venice, Shylock the Jew endeavors to exact from Antonio's body 
the pound of flesh as a forfeit, but he is thwarted by Portia, who 
plays the role of a lawyer. 



NOTES 277 

259, 1. Papa chases. Possibly a misprint for ^'papaw chases," 
meaning lots or enclosures where the papaw, a tropical fruit 
resembling the banana, was cultivated. 

261, 1. General N. B. Forrest. A general in the Confederate 
service of the Civil War. . 



MERRILL'S ENGLISH TEXTS 

Complete Editions 

Addison, Steele, and Budgell— The Sir Roger de Coverley 

Papers in ''The Spectator'' 30 

Browning — Poems (Selected) 25 

Bunyan— Pilgrim's Progress, Part 1 40 

Burke— Speech on Conciliation with America 25 

Byron— Childe Harold, Canto IV, and The Prisoner of 

Chillon 25 

Carlyle— An Essay on Burns 25 

Coleridge— The Bime of the Ancient Mariner, and other 

Poems 25 

Coleridge— The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and Lowell 

—The Vision of Sir Launf al, Combined 40 

Defoe— Robinson Crusoe, Part 1 50 

De Quincey— Joan of Arc, and TheEnglish Mail Coach. . .25 

Dickens— A Tale of Two Cities 50 

Eliot, G-eorge— Silas Marner 40 

Emerson— Essays (Selected) 40 

Q-oldsmitli— The Deserted Village, and ofher Poems 25 

Goldsmith-The Vicar of Wakefield • .30 

Q-ray— Elegy in a Country Churchyard, and Goldsmith- 
The Deserted Village, Combined 30 

Hale— The Man Without a Country and My Double 25 

Hawthorne— The House of the Seven Gables 40 

Homer— The Odyssey, Books VI to XIV, XVIH to XXIV 

(English translation) . 50 

Irving— The Sketch Book 50 

Damb— Essays of Elia 50 

Lincoln— Selections 25 

Lowell -The Vision of Sir Launfal, and other Poems 25 

Macaulay— Essays on Lord Clive and Warren Hastings. . .40 

Macaulay— Essay on Samuel Johnson 25 

Macaulay— Lays of Ancient Rome, and Arnold — Sohrab 

and Rustum, Combined 30 

Milton— Lycidas, Comus, L'Allegro, II Penseroso, and 

other Poems 25 

Palgrave— Golden Treasury; (Eirst Series) 40 

Parkman— The Oregon Trail 50 

Poe— The Raven, Longfellow— The Courtship of Miles 

Standish, and Whittier^Snow-bound, Combined 25 

Scott— Ivanhoe 50 

Shakespeare — A Midsummer Kight's Dream 25 

Shakespeare — As You Like It 25 

Shakespeare — Julius Caesar 25 

Shakespeare— King Henry V , 25 

Shakespeare — ^^lacbeth 25 

Shakespeare — Merchant of Venice 25 

Shakespeare — Twelfth Night 25 

Stevenson— An Inland Voyage and Travels with a Donkey .40 

Stevenson— Treasure Island 40 

Tennyson — Idylls of the King 30 

Thoreau — Walden 50 

Washington — Earewell Address, and Webster — ^First and 

Second Bunker Hill Orations 25 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Feb. 2009 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




013 998 408 ^ 






K>p,-^i-i..r y.-..^ 


^^a^^?V3c;>: rr 




^K^ifX^X^ " " •■'''• 


.-. .-HVir.r i'^fV-", 


- — . -— . -~J 


V -:•:-'/ '.»i:i^ 


' - ■ -- cfi:*-^* 


^^i^ 


tr '_£ 


rr.fr^X 


• ' 'j^-Ti 


:.-^::^:t^^ 






. ' >'■ .-•"'!'f?''%fi 




- -*. T ;.' jixVit 


'■ Ds^n- 






r^-^i 



